"Then I'll ask her."
The old woman tried to restrain him, but Irma had already risen to her feet. She looked about her with a vacant stare and opened her lips, but could not speak.
"It's you!" cried Thomas suddenly. "That's splendid."
He wanted to seize her, but Zenza held him back.
"It's you!" he cried again. "You've lost your way and here you are; that's splendid."
"Do you know me?"
"Why, who doesn't know you? you're the king's sweetheart and now you're--"
Irma's loud shriek of despair drowned the last words of the brutal fellow.
"Hurrah!" shouted Thomas. "Out with you, mother; and you, too, Esther. I don't need either of you."
"Let her go! You shan't touch her," cried the mother.