"But I can guess it. I see through the game that is playing with me. Have a care, madame, that the bow is not too tensely bent; the string might break."
"I do not understand you."
"Then I must speak more clearly. You shall have your will and understand perfectly. Yours be the consequences of allowing me a glimpse into your heart,--of ruthlessly annihilating my fairest hopes. You shall not escape unpunished from the intrigue which you have spun to drive me from Castle Hohenwald."
Werner's eyes flashed fire and his cheek was crimson as he spoke. His agitation Lucie could not understand, and it terrified her. She had never seen the calm, easy Finanzrath thus moved. "You speak in riddles, Herr Finanzrath," she said, looking frankly in his face. "I do not understand your anger. What do you mean by your threat, and by accusing me of intriguing to drive you from Castle Hohenwald?"
"Am I not yet sufficiently clear?" Werner continued, even more angrily. "Do you still imagine you can deceive me? You are mistaken. I see through your game. You choose that I should speak it out plainly? Well, then, so be it! I am weary of the restraint that I have put upon myself for months I will no longer be your plaything! I have loved you passionately since the day when I brought you to the castle; to win your love in return was my highest aim in life, my fondest hope----"
"I must not listen to you. I must leave you!" Lucie exclaimed, indignantly.
"You must listen; I will force you to hear me!" Werner declared.
"You are mad!"
"You have made me so. Thank yourself that my passion asserts itself, that I cast aside the fetters that have bound me for months. As long as I hoped to win your love I endured their restraint; now, since I see through your schemes, I will do so no longer. I suspected it all long since. I have often told myself that you were but playing with my love, but never until now did I know it surely. Do you think I have been blind,--that I have slumbered through these long weeks? No, jealousy has spurred me on to constant watchfulness; not a look exchanged between Arno and yourself has escaped me. I have been insane with jealousy when you were alone with him in the library, but I would not believe that you could prefer him to me, and so I deceived myself and you deceived me. You may well desire my absence. I could by a single word put a stop to all your loving dalliance. Arno is your informant; he would thrust from his path the brother in whom he suspects a rival, and he thinks to drive me away by the threat of an imaginary danger. Fool! I see through his game."
Lucie listened in blank amazement to the accusations thus heaped upon her, which, in their suddenness and strangeness, bewildered her comprehension. Was this Werner, the polished, easy man of fashion, confronting her now with angry eyes and laying bare before her the inmost secrets of his soul? What should she reply to so disgraceful an attack? A contemptuous silence was all that it deserved. And she was silent, but this Werner regarded in the light of a confession; he thought she was trembling at his anger and unable to reply. He laughed scornfully, and continued, "Am I sufficiently clear now, madame? Now you know, I imagine, that you can no longer deceive me. You are right not to attempt it by any denial. One thing, however, you have forgotten, that I know your past, and that one word from me can put an end to your brief dream of love. My precious brother is an idealist who might indeed bestow his heart upon Celia's poor governess, the lovely Anna Müller, but who would turn with aversion and disgust from the runaway wife of Herr von Sorr! Hitherto I have kept your secret faithfully, but I might easily be tempted to forget to do so in future. Herr von Sorr has not resigned his rights; he is still searching for you, and it is owing to my silence alone that he is not now here asserting those rights in defiance of which you would vainly seek protection from Arno. Your safety here you owe only to the love which, spite of all the offence it has received at your hands, still glows within me, a consuming flame. Have a care that you do not convert it to hatred, Frau von Sorr. Continue to reject my devotion, to play with my jealousy, and you shall bitterly repent!"