"If that is true, I can certainly do nothing except go again!" she replied, turning toward the door. "But answer for it to God for having thrust me forth unheard."
"Nay, Countess, pray, speak!" said Freyer, kindly. She looked at him so beseechingly that his heart melted with unutterable pain. "Come--and--tell me what weighs upon your heart!" he added in a gentler tone.
"Not until you again call me your dove--or your child."
Tears filled his eyes, "My child--what have you done!"
"That is right--I can speak now! What have I done, Joseph? What you saw; and still worse. I not only treated you coldly and distantly in my father's presence, I afterwards disowned you three times--and I come to tell you so because you alone can and--I know--will forgive me."
Freyer had clasped his hands upon his knee and was gazing into vacancy. Madeleine continued: "You see, I have so lofty an opinion of you, and of your love, that I do not try to justify myself. I will only remind you of the words you yourself said to-day: 'May you never be forced to weep the tears which Peter shed when the cock crowed for the third time.' I will recall what must have induced Christ to forgive Peter: 'He knew the disciple's heart!' Joseph--do you not also know the heart of your Magdalena?"
A tremor ran through the strong man's frame and, unable to utter a word, he threw his arm around her and his head drooped on her breast.
"Joseph, you are ignorant of the world, and the bonds with which it fetters even the freest souls. Therefore you must believe in me! It will often happen that I shall be forced to do something incomprehensible to you. If you did not then have implicit faith in me, we could never live happily together. This very day I had resolved to break with society, strip off all its chains. But no matter how many false and culpable ideas it has--its principles, nevertheless, rest upon a foundation of morality. That is why it can impose its fetters upon the very persons who have nothing in common with its immoral side. Nay, were it merely an immoral power it would be easy, in a moment of pious enthusiasm, to shake off its thrall--but when we are just on the eve of doing so, when we believe ourselves actually free, it throws around our feet the snare of a duty and we are prisoned anew. Such was my experience to-day with my father! I should have been compelled to sunder every tie, had I told him the truth! I was too weak to provoke the terrible catastrophe--and deferred it, by disowning you."
Freyer quivered with pain.
She stroked his clenched hand caressingly. "I know what this must be. I know how the proud man must rebel when the woman he loved did that. But I also expect my angel to know what it cost me!"