Only now did he begin to reflect what sort of a game he was playing.

These two flowers so fascinated him, so engrossed his attention, that he only perceived that the lady had returned when she stood feverishly trembling before him.
Each of them shrank back from the other.
The secret was revealed.
Rudolf gazed speechlessly at the woman and she at him.

How beautiful, how bewitchingly beautiful she was in her dumb misery as slowly, unconsciously, she folded her hands together and pressed them against her bosom, to stifle by force the tempest of her tears! Rudolf forgot his part, and, deeply moved, exclaimed, "My God!" Now, for the first time, he really understood everything.
The sorrow in his voice broke down the energy with which Fanny had hitherto restrained her tears, and they began to flow in streams down her beautiful face as she sank into an armchair.
Taking tenderly one of her pretty hands, Rudolf asked compassionately, "Why do you weep ?" But he knew well enough now why she wept.
"Why did you come here," inquired the lady in a voice trembling with emotion--she could control herself no longer--"when, day after day, I have been praying God that I might never see you again?
When I avoided every place where I might chance to meet you, why did you seek me out here?
I am lost, for God has abandoned me.

In all my life, no man's image has been in my heart save yours alone.

Yet I had buried that away too, far out of sight.