It was after one of these interesting dialogues that Melchior de
Willading, his heart softened and his soul touched with the hopes of
heaven, listened with a more indulgent ear to the firm declaration of
Adelheid, that unless she became the wife of Sigismund, her self-respect,
no less than her affections, must compel her to pass her life unmarried.
We shall not say that the maiden herself philosophized on premises as
sublime as those of the good monk, for with her the warm impulses of the
heart lay at the bottom of her resolution; but even she had the
respectable support of reason to sustain her cause. The baron had that
innate desire to perpetuate his own existence in that of his descendants,
which appears to be a property of nature. Alarmed at a declaration which
threatened annihilation to his line, while at the same time he was more
than usually under the influence of his better feelings, he promised that
if the charge of murder could be removed from Balthazar, he would no
longer oppose the union. We should be giving the reader an opinion a
little too favorable of the Herr von Willading, were we, to say that he
did not repent having made this promise soon after it was uttered.
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