of his heart, and she could contain
her self no longer. More tenderly than she had ever addressed him
before, she besought her brother to open his heart to her. She would
gladly help him to endure what oppressed him; and she could understand,
for she herself had learned what the joys and sorrows of love were.

She had found the right clew. Philip nodded, and answered gloomily:

"Well, then, listen. It may do me good to speak." And thereupon he began
to tell her what she had already heard from Alexander; and, covering her
tingling cheeks with her hands, she listened with breathless attention,
not missing a word, though the question rose to her mind again and again
whether she should tell him the whole truth, which he as yet could not
know, or whether it would be better to spare his already burdened soul.

He described his love in glowing colors. Korinna's heart, he said, must
have gone forth to him; for, at their last meeting on the northern shore
of the lake, her hand had rested in his while he helped her out of the
boat; he could still feel the touch of her fingers. Nor had the meeting
been pure accident, for he had since seen and recognized the presence on
earth of her departed soul in her apparently living form. And she, too,
with the subtle senses of a disembodied spirit, must have had a yearning
towards him, for she had perceived all the depth and fervor of his
passion. Alexander had given him this certainty; for when he had seen
Korinna by the lake, her soul had long since abandoned its earthly
tenement. Before that, her mortal part was already beyond his reach; and
yet he was happy, for the spirit was not lost to him. Only last night
magic forces had brought her before him--his father, too, had been
present, and no deception was possible. He had gone to bed in rapturous
excitement, full of delicious hopes, and Korinna had at once appeared
to him in a dream, so lovely, so kind, and at the same time so subtle a
vision, ready to follow him in his thoughts and strivings. But just as
he had heard a full assurance of her love from her own lips, and was
asking her by what name he should call her when the craving to see her
again should wax strong in him, old Dido had waked him, to cast him out
of elysium into the deepest earthly woes.

But, he added--and he drew himself up proudly--he should soon possess
the Magian's art, for there was no kind of learning he could not master;
even as a boy he had proved that to his t