"But I have promised."
"Promised? And is this wretched promise to annihilate your happiness for life? You used to be indifferent to Bertram, and that was bad enough; but now I can read in your eyes as in an open book, he becomes more odious to you every hour of every day, and you would give yourself--swear love and fidelity before the altar--to this man whose very touch inspires you with loathing. Will it not be perjury and a far greater wrong to Bertram than if you should break your hasty promise?"
"He knows well that I do not love him."
"So much the worse. If he does not wish for your heart, for your love, he is speculating upon your money. Give him a share of your fortune,--you are rich enough,--but do not sacrifice yourself!"
"How gladly would I do so, but he will not release me. Do not urge me further. Aline, you only make me more unhappy. I have had a hard struggle with myself; indeed the fulfilment of the duty I have undertaken demands all the strength I am mistress of, but it must be fulfilled. Bertram has sacrificed his future to me. Can money requite him for the honour he has lost? I cannot retreat. My destiny must be fulfilled!"
CHAPTER IX.
The road to Castle Reifenstein, upon which the three friends had started, ran through the village of Tausens and the isolated dwellings of the peasants on the bank of the Schwarzenbach. After passing the last of these it left the broad beaten valley road, turned to the right, and passed around the mountain crowned by the castle, gradually ascending on the northern more gentle slope until, after many windings, it reached a bridge leading across a broad, deep chasm in the rocks to the ancient portals of the castle.
Before the invention of gunpowder Castle Reifenstein had been an impregnable fortress, although it owed little of its impregnability to art. Nature had provided for the discomfiture of any possible besiegers by the inaccessibility of the steep rocks that formed its base on the southern side.
If the ancient Counts of Tausens, whose nest it was, raised the drawbridge they were secure from any attack, for on one side it was as impossible to climb the smooth, straight wall of rock, on the summit of which stood the castle, as it was to spring across the broad and ugly chasm, several hundred feet deep, across which the bridge was flung, and which cut off the rock from the gentle declivity of the mountain on its northern side. Thus a few archers, placed behind the walls and in the round tower, could command the entire road up from the valley.
On the eastern side alone the rock was connected with the mountain. A green meadow, which had latterly been converted into a garden, extended from the forest upwards to the wall. Art had here contributed towards rendering the fortress impregnable. A single huge door opened out of the castle courtyard upon this garden. At either end of the wall had stood a huge round tower; of one of these nothing remained but the base in ruins, while the other, in good preservation, stood proudly erect in close vicinity to the inhabited wing of the castle.