“Ah, you would kill me, you would craze me!” murmured he, sorrowfully, sinking down, powerless, at her feet.

She looked wonderingly at him.  “Why are you angry with me?” she innocently said, “and what have I done, that you so wrongfully accuse me?”

“What have you done?” cried he, beside himself,—­the moment had overcome him, this moment had burst the bands with which he had bound his heart, and in unfettered freedom, in glowing passion, his long-concealed secret forced its way to his lips.  He must at length for once speak of his sorrows, even if death should follow; he must give expression to his torment and his love, even should Natalie banish him forever from her presence!

“What have you done?” repeated he.  “Ah, she does not even know that she is slowly murdering me, she does not even know that I love her!”

“Am I not to know?” she reproachfully asked.  “Would you, indeed, have saved my life had you not loved me?  Carlo I am indebted to you for my life, and you say I murder you!”

“Yes,” he frowardly exclaimed, “you murder me!  Slowly, day by day, hour by hour, am I consumed by this frightful internal fire that is destroying me.  Ah, you know not that you are killing me.  And have you not destroyed my youthful strength, and from a man converted me into an old, trembling, and complaining woman?  Is it not for your sake that I have fled the world, leaving behind me all it offered of fame and wealth and honor?  Is it not your fault that I have ceased to be a free man, to have a will of my own, and have become a slave crawling at your feet?  Ah, woe is me, that I ever came to know you!  You are an enchantress, you have made me your hound, and, whining, I lie in the dust before you, satisfied when you touch me with your foot.”

At first, Natalie had listened to him with terror and astonishment; then an expression of noble pride was to be read upon her features, a glowing flush flitted over her delicate cheeks, and with flashing eyes and a heaving bosom she sprang up from her seat.  Proud as a queen she rose erect, the blood of her ancestors awoke in her; she at this moment felt herself free as an empress, as proud, as secure—­and, stretching her arm toward the outlet of the garden, she said in a determined tone:  “Go, Signor Carlo!  Leave me, I tell you!  We have no longer any thing in common with each other!”

Carlo seemed as if awakened from a delirium.  Breathless, with widely-opened eyes, trembling and anxious, he stared at the angry maiden.  He knew nothing of what he had said; he comprehended not her anger, only his infinite suffering; he was conscious only of his long-suppressed, long-concealed secret love.  And, grasping Natalie’s hands with an imploring expression, he constrained the young maiden, almost against her will, to remain and reseat herself upon the grassy bank before which he knelt.