entreat you, do not ask what is impossible. There are
sacrifices which a man can never accept from the woman he loves--which
humiliate him as they ennoble her. I should blush before your nobility; it
would bow me into the dust. Leonore de Simonie must not leave the pure,
proud sphere in which she lives; she must remain what she is, the queen of
the drawing-room."

"Is this your final answer?" she asked, turning deadly pale.

"My final one."

"Well, then, hear me! You shall know who I am; you shall at least learn
that you might accept every sacrifice from me without ever being obliged to
blush in my presence. You thrust me from you, that is, you thrust me into
death! Yes, I will die, I wish to die, but first you shall hear from my
lips the truth, that you may not grieve, may not shed a single tear for me.
So hear me, Carl, hear me! I am not what you believe. My foot is not
accustomed to the soft paths of life--the world of splendor and honor is
not mine. From my earliest childhood I have walked in obscurity and
humiliation, in disgrace and shame, a dishonored, ignominious creature."

As if crushed by her own words she sank down at his feet, and raised her
clasped hands beseechingly, while her head drooped low on her breast.

Kolbielsky gazed at her with an expression of unspeakable horror, then a
smile flitted over his face.

"You are speaking falsely," he cried, "you are speaking falsely out of
generosity."

"Oh, would to heaven it were so!" she lamented. "No, believe me, I am
telling the truth; I am not what I seem; I am not the Baroness de Simonie."

"Not Baroness de Simonie? Then who are you?" he shrieked frantically.

"I am a paid spy of the Emperor Napoleon, and the spy Schulmeister is my
father."

Kolbielsky uttered a cry of fury and raised his clenched fist as if he
intended to let it fall upon her head. But he repressed his rage and turned
away. Despair and grief now overpowered him. He tottered to a chair and,
sinking into it, covered his face and wept aloud.

Leonore was still kneeling, but when she heard him sob she started up,
rushed to him, and again throwing herself at his feet, she embraced his
knees.

"Do not weep--curse me! Thrust me from you, but do not weep. Alas! yet I
have deserved your tears. I am a poor, lost creature. Yes, do not weep. I
have suffered much, sinned much, but also atoned heavily. Yes, weep for me!
My life lies bare as a torn wreath of roses in the dust--not a blossom