"
Sigismund was bewildered, for the manner of his companion, though the
color went and came in sudden and bright flashes across her pure brows,
was miraculously calm and full of dignity. He took the seat to which she
silently pointed, and sat motionless as if carved in stone, his faculties
absorbed in the single sense of hearing. Adelheid saw that the crisis was
arrived, and that retreat, without an appearance of levity that her
character and pride equally forbade, was impossible. The inbred and
perhaps the inherent feelings of her sex would now have caused her again
to avoid the explanation, at least as coming from herself, but that she
was sustained by a high and holy motive.
"Thou must find great delight, Sigismund, in reflecting on thine own good
acts to others. But for thee Melchior de Willading would have long since
been childless; and but for thee his daughter would now be an orphan. The
knowledge that thou hast had the power and the will to succor thy friends
must be worth all other knowledge!"
"As connected with thee, Adelheid, it is," he answered in a low voice: "I
would not exchange the secret happiness of having been of this use to
thee, and to those thou lovest, for the throne of the powerful prince I
serve.
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