Hilda looked up into his face with a happy smile, and he needed no reply in words; indeed she could have given him none, for in an instant his arms were about her, and his kisses sealed her lips.
She extricated herself from his embrace, and her pleading eyes restrained his passionate outburst. He still however clasped in his the little hand, which he kissed repeatedly, saying, "Come, come to your father, lovely fairy! This moment must confirm the happiness of my future life."
Hilda conducted him across the castle court-yard to her father's study, whither Herr von Heydeck had withdrawn from the presence of his daughter's guests.
He was so absorbed in his work that he did not hear the door open; only when Paul and Hilda stood close beside him did he look up from his books, and as his gaze rested upon Delmar the same look of horror with which he had greeted his first appearance passed into his face. Again he put up his hand, as if to ward off some attack, while he seemed incapable of speech.
Paul was no whit daunted however. "Do not repulse me, Herr von Heydeck," he said, in a gentle voice. "I come not as your enemy, not to demand, but to entreat. I pray you to receive me as your son in granting me your daughter's hand."
The simple words fairly overwhelmed the old man. He had started forward in his arm-chair; he now sank back into it helplessly. "You--you ask to be my son? You sue for Hilda's hand,--and you know?----"
It was only with great difficulty that he gasped forth these broken sentences.
"I know everything," Paul replied calmly. "I come from Dr. Putzer's death-bed; he gave me these papers, which I now hand over to you. I pray you to destroy them; forget the past as I have forgotten it. Receive me as a son, who never will forget the respect he owes to the father of his dearest Hilda."
Herr von Heydeck clutched with a trembling hand the papers which Paul held out to him. He glanced at their contents, and his face was illumined by an expression of intense joy. The next instant he had torn the dreaded documents into countless shreds, after which he buried his head in his hands and burst into a convulsive fit of sobbing.
Paul did not disturb him, but whispering low reassuring words of tenderness to the astonished and frightened Hilda, he waited calmly until Herr von Heydeck had regained his composure. Only when the old man lifted his head and looked from his daughter to her lover with tear-dimmed eyes did Paul repeat his entreaty, adding, "Hilda has given me her heart,--you will not refuse my suit, Herr von Heydeck?"