“Then those who so named it have been deceived by the flimsy veil of oriental legend in which your figures are enveloped, they have seen the Eastern priest with the woman he loves succumb to an iron, inhuman law.  Perhaps you are a great poet, perhaps you will astonish the world with your fame, but to me you are something else, for the passion and fiery language of ‘Arivana’ have taught me something of its creator; of the man who believes in nothing, to whom nothing in the world is holy, neither duty nor pledge, neither manly honor nor womanly virtue; who would drag the highest in the dust for the sport of his passion.  I yet believe in duty and honor, believe in myself, and with this belief I bid defiance to the fate which you so triumphantly prophesy will enthrall me.  It can drive me to death—­but never into your arms.”

She stood opposite him, neither trembling nor irresolute.  All her secret struggles were over, and with each word one more link of the chain was loosened.

Her eyes met his, full and free; she feared their dark, baneful glance no longer—­that mysterious power was broken; she felt it and breathed deeply, like one whose hour of deliverance had come.

Again there was a flash of lightning, noiseless, not followed by any thunder crash, but it seemed to open the heavens to their very depths.  In the palpitating light one could see fantastic cloud pictures, forms which seemed to struggle and battle with one another as if borne by force before the storm, and yet the cloud-mountain stood immovable on the far horizon; and just as immovable stood the man upon whose dark countenance the lightning flash revealed a deep pallor.

His eyes had not turned from the young wife’s face, but the wild glow within them was extinguished, and his voice had a strange sound as he said: 

“And this is the sentence for which I begged.  I am then, in your eyes nothing more than a—­reprobate?”

“A lost man, perhaps—­you have forced me to this avowal.”

Hartmut stepped slowly back a few steps.

“Lost,” he repeated in bitter tone.  “That is probably what you think.  You may be at rest, my dear madam.  I will never approach you again; one has no desire to hear such words a second time.  You stand so proud and firm upon your watch tower of virtue and judge so severely.  You have no conception what a wild, desperate life can make of a man who goes through the world without home or family.  You are right.  I believed in nothing in the heavens above or on the earth beneath—­until this hour.”

There was something in his tone and in his whole bearing which disarmed
Adelheid.

She felt she had no cause to fear a further explosion of passion, and her voice grew milder as she answered: 

“I judge no one, but I belong heart and soul to another world, with other laws than yours.  I am the daughter of a father whom I dearly loved, who, all his life long, trod but one path, the earnest, rigid path of duty.  Upon this he raised himself from poverty and privation to wealth and honor, and he taught his children to follow in the same way, and it is this thought which has been my shield and protection in this hard hour.  I could not endure it if I were compelled to lower my eyes before the noble image which my memory holds.  Your father is no longer alive?”