She had left her seat and accompanied him as far as the garden gate, and when he turned back he saw her looking after him with a sweet, pathetic smile.
She stayed in the same attitude for many minutes. But when her cousin, seeing from a distance that the King had gone, came up to her, eager to find out how matters stood, she received him with an outburst of temper quite foreign to her gentle character, refused to answer a single question, and rushed from him into the house, where she took refuge in her own room.
Much puzzled, Johann turned his steps into the park, where he happened to come across his uncle.
“Well, Johann, what has happened?” demanded Franz, anxiously. “Has the King been to see her?”
“Yes, he has been and gone; and that is all I can tell you,” was the ill-tempered answer, as Johann strode onward in the direction of the Castle.
Franz was alarmed by his nephew’s words and manner. He hastened towards the cottage, determined to have it out with his daughter.
On his arrival, however, she was still upstairs, and by the time she had come downstairs he had had time for reflection. Her serious air somewhat intimidated him, and contributed to make him delay his parental inquiries. He therefore left her alone till supper-time, consoling himself for the violence to his feelings thus caused, by numerous applications to a bottle, containing something which he considered more wholesome than the cider for which his cottage was famed.
By this means he at last brought himself up to the requisite pitch of courage, and bluntly attacked his daughter.
“Now, Dorothea, I am not going to stand any more of this nonsense. I am your father and your best friend, and I have a right to know what is going on.”
The girl directed a glance at him in which he thought he detected alarm, but she made no other answer. He assumed a more determined tone.