Ernst drew a deep breath, and the colour slowly returned to his cheek: "Well, then, it is with the dead that I must strive. I will not fear a phantom; it must yield when once I clasp you in my arms. Erna, come to me!"
She recoiled in dismay from the passion in his words: "What! you still persist? When I tell you that I have no love to bestow upon you, does not your pride stand you in stead?"
"My pride,--where has it gone?" he broke forth. "Do you suppose that I could have gone on wooing you patiently for months without one word of encouragement from you, had I been the same Waltenberg who thought he needed but to ask of fate to attain his desire? Now I have learned to beg. The sight of you threw about me a spell to escape from which I struggle in vain. Erna, if you desire it I will resign my wandering life, and if you should wish for home in those sunny lands which I so long to show you, I will return with you to the cold, gloomy north, and for your sake assume the fetters of existence here. You do not know what a change you have already wrought in me, how all-powerful is your influence over me. Ah, do not be thus cold and impassive as your Alpine Fay upon her icy throne! I must win you for my own although your kiss were as deadly as that of the phantom of your legend."
His words were prompted by passion, strong to sweep down all obstacles in its path; such tones are always intoxicating for a woman's ear, and here, moreover, they dropped like soothing balm upon a wound that was still bleeding. It had been so humiliating to the girl to know herself ignored, resigned, not for the sake of another,--Erna knew well that that other was as nought to the man whose ambition was his god, the idol to whom she had been sacrificed. And now she was beloved, idolized, encompassed by a passionate regard which knew no calculation and no bounds. She was desired for herself alone. It was a triumph for her pride. And she was assailed, too, by pity,--by the consciousness of power to bestow happiness. Everything urged her to utter the consent for which she was implored, and yet she was restrained by an invisible something, and at this decisive moment another face arose in her memory,--a face that had looked so pale in the moonlight as the white lips had faltered, 'And could you have loved a man who had risen thus?'