The hypocrite sank at her feet, as though utterly crushed, and pressed the tips of her cold fingers to his lips.
"Uncle," began Ernestine, and her voice trembled, "stand up! I cannot endure the sight of a man before whom I have been used to stand in awe, grovelling at my feet like a crushed serpent, whose writhings excite aversion rather than compassion. Stand up! I pray you stand up!" She turned from him, that she might no longer see him.
"Ernestine," cried Leuthold terrified, "you are marble!"
"I am what you have made me."
He had expected a different result from his confession, and he watched Ernestine with the greatest anxiety. She read the letter once more, and then sank on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.
"Ernestine, be composed!" he cried, with a degree of his native insolence which could not all be concealed behind the mask that he had assumed. "Punish my crime, take what revenge you will, but spare me the sight of your humiliating despair at the loss of wealth."
"Do you imagine, man of no conscience, that I mourn for my lost wealth?" said Ernestine wrathfully, but with dignity. "If you had asked me honourably for the money and then lost it through some misfortune, I would have died sooner than have reproached you by a word or a tear. But I must despise the only human being in the world upon whom I have any claim. All that I have is lost through crime, and this passes my endurance. You know well what depends upon the shining bits of metal of which you have robbed me--freedom of thought and action,--the noblest possessions that life can give. For the sake of these you have robbed me, for you are no thief to steal money only for the sake of money. You know, too, what a loss it is for a woman,--that it entails upon her dependence perhaps servitude,--yes, servitude, to become a mere machine, obeying unquestioningly another's will,--and this for a soul that would have bowed to no power on earth or in heaven, but that rejoiced in its pride in being the centre of its own self-created world! And you, knowing how in this thought I die a thousand deaths, dare to reproach me with despair at the loss of mere wealth! Look you, I do not forget, even in this terrible moment, what you have done for me since my childhood,--what an inexhaustible mine of intellectual wealth you have revealed to me in exchange for the earthly treasure you have taken from me,--and, remembering this, I renounce the revenge that you offer me. Save yourself if you can, but do not require of me sufficient 'greatness of soul' to forgive you!"
Leuthold breathed freely once more. This was all he wished to hear,--that she would not deliver him up to justice. The worst was over. If she thus in the first outburst of her anger rejected the idea of bringing punishment upon him, she might, when more composed, be brought to connive at and share his flight.
"Ernestine," he said, after a moment of reflection, "every one of your words is like a coal of fire upon my guilty head. Even in your righteous indignation you are noble and gentle. You tell me I may save myself, but do you imagine that I can go away without you? Could I endure the thought of you struggling with poverty, without me to labour for you and to shield you? Have I tended you for all these years with a mother's solicitude, to leave you to your fate now, when you need me more than ever? Girl, if you think thus of me, you do me grievous wrong!" Ernestine looked at him in surprise.
"Either you fly with me, or I remain and brave the worst!" said Leuthold with heroic resolution.