"
Marie softly took his hand in both her own, and said tremulously:
"I want you to give me a companion--a mother. I want some one to
love,--a woman that I can love,--one who will love me and command me. I
will be an obedient and dutiful daughter to such a woman. I will never
grieve her, never disobey her. I am so very, very lonely!"
"And am not I, too, alone and lonely, Marie?" sadly responded Vavel.
"Yes, yes. I know that, Ludwig. It is your pale, melancholy face that
oppresses me and makes me sad. Day after day I see the pale face which
my cruel, curse-laden destiny has buried here with me. I know that you
are unhappy, and that I am the cause of it."
"For heaven's sake, Marie! who has given you such fancies?"
"The long, weary nights! Oh, how much I have learned from the darkness!
It was not merely caprice that prompted me to ask you once what death
meant. Had you questioned me more fully then, I should have confessed
something to you. That time, when you rescued me from death, you gave my
name to Sophie Botta, who also took upon herself my fate. I don't know
what became of her. If she died in my stead, may God comfort her! If
she still lives, may God bless and help her to reign in my stead! But
give me the name of Sophie Botta; give me the clothes of a working-girl;
give me God's free world, which she enjoyed.
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