"And would you really carry the farce so far as to give me such an answer?" he asked at last in a hoarse voice.
Elizabeth smiled contemptuously, and turned away. Her behaviour transported him with rage.
"Your reasons? I will know your reasons!" he ejaculated, stepping between Elizabeth and the door which she was trying to reach. He caught at her dress to detain her. She shrunk from him, and retired a few steps farther into the room.
"Leave me!" she cried, gasping for breath. Terror almost choked her utterance; hut, nevertheless, she once more took courage, and raised her head proudly, with an air of command. "If there is no spark of honour in you to which I can appeal, you force me to use the only weapons at my command, by declaring to you that I thoroughly despise you; I detest the sight of you; the hiss of a poisonous viper could not inspire me with the aversion and disgust with which I listen to the words by which you would awaken my affection. I have never harboured one sentiment of regard for you; but, if I had, it must have been instantly annihilated by your despicable conduct towards me. Let me go now in peace, and——"
He did not allow her to finish her sentence. "That I shall certainly not do," he hissed between his teeth; his face that had hitherto been so pale, flushed crimson, and his eyes flashed as he darted towards her, like some raging wild beast. She fled to the window, as she saw it was impossible to reach the door, and tried to lift the sash, hoping to be able to leap from the low sill to the ground without. But she stood still, transfixed with horror. A terrible face was looking into the room from the shrubbery outside. The features were deadly pale, and distorted by a fiendish grin, while the fire of madness gleamed in the eyes that were riveted upon Elizabeth's face. She hardly recognized in the dreadful apparition dumb Bertha; shivering with terror, she recoiled; Hollfeld's extended arms encircled her form,—blinded by passion, he did not perceive the ghastly face at the window. Elizabeth pressed her ice-cold fingers upon her closed eyes to shut out the horrible sight; she felt her persecutor's hot breath upon her hands; his hair brushed her cheek; she shuddered, but her physical force failed her; she succumbed beneath the twofold horror,—no sound escaped her lips. At sight of Hollfeld, Bertha raised her clenched fists as though to dash them through the window panes,—then, suddenly she paused as if listening to some noise near, dropped her hands, and with a shrill laugh, vanished among the shrubbery.
All this was the work of a few seconds. The sound of the shrill laughter startled Hollfeld, and he looked up. For one moment, his gaze sought to penetrate the bushes, behind which Bertha had disappeared, and then it returned to the form which lay in his arms, and which he clasped to his heart. His cunning foresight, his prudent hypocrisy, that had always enabled him to conceal his baseness from the eyes of the world, were all forgotten. He did not remember that the time that Helene had appointed had arrived,—that through the wide open door the gardener, or any of the servants, might enter the room; his passion had mastered him, and he never observed that, in fact, Fräulein von Walde was standing upon the threshold of the door, leaning on her brother's arm, while, behind them, the baroness was stretching out her long neck, with an unmistakable air of great displeasure.
"Emil!" she cried, her voice vibrating with anger. He started, and looked wildly around; involuntarily he opened his arms; Elizabeth's hands dropped from her eyes, and she staggered towards the nearest couch. The harsh, rude voice of the baroness sounded like sweet music in her ears, for it brought her succour. There too stood the tall, manly form, at sight of which her failing pulses throbbed wildly again. She could have thrown herself at his feet, and prayed him,—"Save me from that man, whom I detest and flee from, as I would from sin itself." But what a look met hers! Did that annihilating glance really come from the same eyes that a few days previously had so tenderly sought her own? Was this man, with the stern, erect head, and the pale, cold brow, the same who had bent over her, saying with such unutterable gentleness,—"may my good angel whisper in your ear the word that will unlock that fairy realm for me?" He stood there now like an evil angel, whose mission is to avenge and to crush to the dust some poor, quivering, human heart.
Helene, who had stood as though lifeless or rooted to the ground during the scene in the interior of the apartment, now withdrew her arm from her brother's and approached Elizabeth; she did not for one instant doubt that Hollfeld had prospered in his wooing, and that the matter had been happily concluded.
"A thousand welcomes to you, dearest Elizabeth!" she cried in great agitation, and, while tears broke from her eyes, she took the young girl's trembling hands between her own. "Emil brings me a dear sister,—love me as a sister, and I shall be grateful to you as long as I live. Do not look so stern, Amalie," she turned beseechingly to the baroness, who was standing like a pillar of stone just outside the pavilion; "Emil's future happiness is at stake. Look at Elizabeth! Does she not satisfy every desire that you can have with regard to the one who will occupy such a close relation to you? Young, richly endowed by nature, of an ancient family and distinguished name."
She stopped, startled. At last the life seemed to return to Elizabeth's stiffened limbs, and she was capable of understanding what was said. By a hasty movement she released her hands from Helene's, and stood erect before her.