"Are you going?" asked Helene, as Elizabeth stood behind her chair and bade her farewell. "What does my brother say to that?"
"Rudolph has been summoned to the castle upon some business matter," the baroness, who just now appeared, answered in Elizabeth's stead. "Fräulein Ferber is released from all necessity of remaining any longer."
Helene cast a glance of displeasure at the speaker. "I cannot see why," she said. "His business cannot detain him long, he will certainly return."
"Probably," rejoined the baroness; "but he may be delayed quite late. Fräulein Ferber, meanwhile, will be very much fatigued in a circle where she is such an utter stranger."
"Has my brother released you?" Helene turned to Elizabeth, hardly allowing the baroness to complete her sentence.
"Yes," answered she, "and I pray you to allow me to take my departure."
During this short dialogue the Countess Falkenberg leaned back and measured Elizabeth from head to foot with her cold, piercing eyes; but Hollfeld arose and departed without saying a word. Fräulein von Walde looked after him with an air of anxious discontent, and at first did not reply to Elizabeth's request; but at last, with evident absence of mind, she held out her hand and said, "Well, then, go, dear child, and a thousand thanks for your kind assistance to-day."
Elizabeth took a hasty leave of Doctor Fels and his wife, and then entered the forest with a light heart.
She breathed more freely as the throng was left behind her, and as a few sounding chords concluded the waltz whose bewildering notes had for a short distance accompanied her. She could now yield herself up undisturbed to the magic that had laid so sweet a spell upon her entire mind and being, and forced her to listen still to the tones of that voice which had died upon her ear, ensnaring her heart with its thrilling melody, and at the sound of which all the suggestions of maidenly reserve, all the arguments of her understanding, vanished. She called to mind how passively she had followed him, although her deeply offended pride had prompted her instantly to leave the circle where she seemed to be so unwelcome a guest; she still experienced the delight with which she had hastened to his side when he had so emphatically declared, before all present, that he belonged to her for the day, and would accept of no substitute in her place. He might have conducted her to the end of the world,—she would have followed him blindly with unhesitating reliance and the most entire abandonment of herself to his guidance. And her parents? She understood now how a daughter could forsake father and mother to follow a man whose path in life had been widely separated from her own, leading, perhaps, in directly an opposite direction,—a man who had known nothing of the inclinations, influences, occurrences great and small, by which every fibre of her life had been previously intertwined with the life of her family. Two months before, all this would have been an inexplicable riddle to her.
She turned into a path which she had often trodden with Miss Mertens. It led, by many a narrow winding, through the thicket, out upon the broad path which traversed the forest, and for some distance formed the boundary line between the Prince's domain and the estate of Herr von Walde. On the other side of this broad path opened the wide road which led through the forest to her uncle's Lodge.