nxious entreaty, exclaiming brokenly: "Do not--do not
inflict this suffering upon me, Wawerl! Rob me of everything except hope.
Defer your acceptance until I can offer you a still fairer future, only
be merciful and leave me hope!"

Tears now began to glitter in Barbara's eyes also, and Wolf, noticing it,
hastened with reviving courage to assure her how little it would cost him
to reject, once for all, to please her, the tempting position offered to
him here. He could soon obtain a good office elsewhere, since their
Majesties were not only favourably disposed toward him, but now toward
her also. True, to him even the most brilliant external gifts of life
would be valueless and charmless without her love.

But here Barbara imperatively commanded him to rise, and not make his own
heart and hers still heavier without avail.

Wolf pressed his hands upon his temples as violently as if he feared
losing his senses; but the young girl voluntarily put her arm around his
shoulders, and said with sincere emotion: "Poor Wolf! I know how
thoroughly in earnest you are, but I dare not even leave you hope--I
neither can nor ought. Yet you may hear this: From my childhood you have
been dearer to me than any one else, and never shall I forget how firmly
you cling to me, how hard it is for you to give me up."

Then Sir Wolf vehemently asked to know what stood between them; and
Barbara, after a brief pause for reflection, answered, "Love for
another."

The confession pierced him like a dagger thrust, and he passionately
entreated her to tell him the name of the man who had defrauded him of
the happiness to which he possessed an older and better right than any
one else.

He paced the room with long strides as he spoke, gazing around him as if
he imagined that she had his rival concealed somewhere.

In doing so his glance fell upon Herr Schlumperger's bouquet, and he
wildly cried: "He? So, after all, wealth----"

But this was too much for Barbara, and she stopped him with the
exclamation: "Fool that you are! As if You did not know that I am not to
be bought for the paltry florins of a Ratisbon moneybag!"

But the next instant she had repented her outbreak, and in words so
loving and gentle, so tender and considerate that his heart melted and he
would fain have flung himself again at her feet, she explained to him
more particularly why she was obliged to inflict this suffering upon him.

Her heart was no longer free, and precisely