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ness was surprising and really terrible. A horrid shuddering came over me as the well-known features menaced me from out the strange form; I felt as if some evil spirit stretched out his claws after me from the beautiful face. The devil take conscience! It has often embittered my life, and now, since the affair in the Hildebrand, it will no longer let me have any real satisfaction." There was a sudden rustling behind the glass door, through which Bona had disappeared, and to which Francis had turned his back. Glancing round fearfully to the place whence the noise came, he saw the magic image of the fair stranger, and he shook and shuddered as if in the frosts of fever.--"Heaven be merciful to me!" he cried,--clapped his hands before his eyes, and rushed out through another door into the garden. No sooner had Francis left the green-house than Bona entered it through the side-door. For some time she looked after him as he ran along the principal alley of the garden, while her beautiful eyes sparkled with silent wrath, her right hand pressed itself violently on her throbbing bosom, as if she wished to keep down its heavings by force, and thoughts of evil seemed to furrow her lovely forehead. At this instant came tripping along from a side walk the knight, Rasselwitz, in all his bravery, as with hope and desire on his face he bent his way towards the green-house. The moment Bona perceived him, the furrows smoothed themselves upon her brow, her eyes lost their fierceness, a gentle longing spread over her features, and she flung herself in a picturesque attitude on the garden-seat beneath the oleander. Rasselwitz entering, said in the softest tone, "I owe it to my good fortune, noble lady, that I find you here in this confidential loneliness, and can paint the feelings which glow towards you in my heart, without being interrupted by troublesome witnesses." With angelic kindness Bona presented her hand to him, and drew him down beside her, gently murmuring, "You have often before protested your love to me, Herr von Rasselwitz, and I would willingly believe in it, but mens' hearts are more treacherous than the treacherous waves of the sea: Who would trust to them? who would answer to me for the continuance of the inclination which you fancy you feel for me--perhaps really feel at the present moment?" Rasselwitz felt himself transported into the third heaven by this accost, for she had never addressed him so before; and
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