"Ah, Heinrich, forgive my distrust! I feared to lose you, because you are the dearest thing in the would to me. I cannot think clearly to-day, I am so bewildered and worn out by grief. How contemptible I must seem to you!"
"If you knew how lovely you are in your weakness! You are not contemptible, you are only a true, tender woman, and therein lies your charm. Do you suppose firm muscles, large bones, and nerves of steel are attractive to men? It is your very helplessness that rouses our magnanimity; your delicacy demands our indulgence. To support a beautiful, trembling woman on his strong arm, and defend her from real or fancied terrors, is a sweet joy to a man,--sweeter than admiration of an abnormal strength, which woman attains only at the cost of her charms."
Cornelia listened to his words with increasing delight.
"Do you suppose," he continued, "that you were ever dearer to me than at this hour, when I am permitted to cradle your weary form upon my knees and fondly caress you? when your strong mind succumbs to the laws of womanly nature and you fly to me in your horror of death? You have trusted yourself to me more than ever before, and in your sorrow are sacred. You have nestled confidingly to this heart, and it shall never deceive you."
"Heinrich! Heinrich What a magic you exert! You banish all griefs with a single glance of love, and your words fill my soul with peace. Ah, it is beautiful to love in happiness! But we only know what we are to each other when we need each other. No language can express what you have been to me in this hour. A dark, starry sky arches over me in your eyes and invites me to repose; it extends over my whole soul and seems as if it enthroned the God to whom I bewail my sorrows, in whom I trust, to whom I shall send up my nightly prayer, and then rest--sleep!" She closed her eyes as if exhausted, and laid her head upon his breast.
Henri clasped her closely in his arms. "Oh, bear this happiness! bear it firmly!" he murmured to himself.
She sat upright again. "I cannot lean upon you; your hard orders hurt me."
"Then rest on the other side," he pleaded.
She pushed her hair back from her brow, looked sadly at the flashing decorations, and rose. "It is late, Heinrich; you must leave me now."
Henri cursed the diamond stars with sincere vexation. What had they availed him? They had destroyed the happiest moment of his life; and the magic night of love, with all its sweet dreams and illusions, which Cornelia's weary soul had spread around herself and him, had melted in their rays.