"'Come in, aunt,' he bade me. I looked at him in alarm, he looked so pale, so exhausted. His hand seized mine. 'It is well that you are looking after me, aunt; something has come over me, I know not how.'
"'And now, Klaus?' I asked, letting him lead me to the sofa, which had descended from my father and still stood on the same spot as of old, under a collection of about fifty deers' antlers, all of which had been taken on the Bütze hunting-grounds, and had decorated that wall as far back as I could remember.
"He had stopped in front of me. 'And now?' he repeated, passing his hand over his forehead. 'It is a strange question, au fond, aunt—Susanna will be my wife. I can give you no other answer.'
"It was out! I had long known that it must come, and yet it fell on me like a blow.
"'Klaus,' I began. But he interrupted me impatiently and indignantly.
"'I know all you would say, aunt; I have said it to myself a hundred times! I know as well as you that Susanna belongs to the common class, that her mother came from doubtful antecedents. I know that Susanna is a trifling, spoiled child, who seems little suited to my seriousness. I know that I am old in comparison to her; and I know, above all, that Anna Maria will never regard her as a sister. Nevertheless, aunt, my resolve stands firm, for I love Susanna Mattoni, love her with all her childish faults, which are hardly to be called faults. I love her in her charming, trifling maidenhood; it will make me happy to be able to educate and guide her further, and the love that Anna Maria denies her I will try to make up to her.'
"I was silent, there was nothing more to be said.
"'You do not look happy, aunt,' he said, bitterly. 'Listen: this afternoon I was thinking of flight; but when Anna Maria said, "Susanna loves you!" it almost crushed me. Amid all the happiness which this revelation opened to me, yet much that has been sacred and not to be trifled with forcibly appealed to me. But when I beheld Susanna, like a dying person, in that poor room, all at once it was clear to me that everything in the world is powerless against a true, deep passion, and then——'
"'And Anna Maria, Klaus?'
"'I cannot talk with her any more this evening, aunt,' he replied; 'wait till I am quieter; there is time enough. I grow violent if I think that it was her words that drove Susanna out in the stormy night. God grant that it may do her no harm!'