Here she is joined by Fernando, whose altered
mood fills her with a vague dread which is converted into horror when,
on the entrance of Caecilie and Lucie, Fernando acknowledges them as
his wife and daughter. After paroxysms of emotion all the parties
separate, and Stella prepares to take her flight after a vain attempt
to cut Fernando's portrait out of its frame. She is interrupted in her
intention of flight by the appearance of Fernando, and there follows a
dialogue in which we are to look for the drift of the play. Caecilie
insists on departing and leaving the two lovers to their happiness. "I
feel," she says, "that my love for thee is not selfish, is not the
passion of a lover, which would give up all to possess its longed-for
object ... it is the feeling of a wife, who out of love itself can
give up love." Fernando, however, passionately declares that he will
never abandon her, and Caecilie makes a happy suggestion that will
solve all difficulties. Was it not recorded of a German Count that he
brought home a maiden from the Holy Land and that she and his wife
happily shared his affections between them? And such is the solution
which commends itself to all parties.
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