Suddenly Elise started up from her knees and strode toward her father.  There was something solemn and imposing in her proud bearing, her extraordinary composure, which only imperfectly veiled her raging grief and passionate excitement.

“Father,” said she solemnly, and her voice sounded hoarse and cold, “may God forgive you for what you have done!  At this moment, when perhaps he is suffering death, I repeat it, I am innocent.”

This proud composure fell freezingly on Gotzkowsky’s heart, and drove back all the milder forgiving impulses.  He remembered only the shame and the injured honor of his daughter.

“You assert your innocence, and yet you had a man concealed in the night in your bedchamber!”

“And yet I am innocent, father!” cried Elise vehemently.  “Read it on my forehead, see it in my eyes, which do not fear to meet yours.  I am innocent!”

And completely overpowered by the bitter and desperate anguish of her soul, she continued, still more excited, “But how does all this concern you?  It was not my honor that you were interested in; you did not seek to avenge that.  You only wished to punish me for daring to assert my freedom and independence, for daring to love without having asked your leave.  The rich man to whom all bend, whom all worship as the priest of the powerful idol which rules the world, the rich man sees with dismay that there is one being not dazzled by his treasures who owns an independent life, a will of her own, and a heart that he cannot command.  And because this being does not of her own accord how down before him he treads it in the dust, whether it be his own child or not.”

“Elise,” cried Gotzkowsky, shocked, “Elise, are you mad?  Do you know that you are speaking to your father?”

But her tortured heart did not notice this appeal; and only remembering that perhaps at this moment her lover was suffering death through her father’s fault, she allowed herself to be carried away by the overpowering force of her grief.  She met the flashing eye of her father with a smile of contempt, and said, coldly:  “Oh yes, you may look at me.  I do not fear your angry glances.  I am free; you yourself have absolved me from any fear of you.  You took from me my lover, and at the same time deprived yourself of your child.”

“O God!” cried Gotzkowsky in an undertone, “have I deserved this, Father in heaven?” and he regarded his daughter with a touching expression.

But she was inexorable; sorrow had unseated her judgment, and “Oh!” cried she in a tone of triumph, “now I will confess every thing to you, how I have suffered and what I have undergone.”

“Elise!” cried he painfully, “have I not given you every thing your heart could desire?”

“Yes!” cried she, with a cruel laugh, “you fulfilled all my wishes, and thereby made me poor in wishes, poor in enjoyment.  You deprived me of the power of wishing, for every thing was mine even before I could desire it.  It was only necessary for me to stretch out my hand, and it belonged to me.  Cheerless and solitary I stood amidst your wealth, and all that I touched was turned into hard gold.  The rich man’s daughter envied the beggar woman in the street, for she still had wishes, hopes, and privations.”