"Good God! Elizabeth," cried the governess, breathlessly, "what have you done! he might have killed you!"
Herr von Walde pushed through the underbrush that separated them from him.
"Are you wounded?" he asked Elizabeth, hurriedly and earnestly.
She shook her head. Without another word he raised her from the ground and carried her to the fallen trunk of a tree, where he gently placed her. Miss Mertens sat down beside her and leaned the girl's head upon her shoulder.
"Now pray tell me what has happened," said Herr von Walde to the governess.
"No, no," cried Elizabeth in terror; "not here, let us go,—the murderer has escaped,—perhaps he is lurking among the bushes, and may yet accomplish his design."
"Linke was about to murder you, Herr von Walde," said Miss Mertens, in a trembling voice.
"Miserable wretch! that shot then was for me," he calmly observed. He turned and went into the thicket where Linke had disappeared. Elizabeth almost lost her self control, and was on the point of following him when he returned.
"Reassure yourself," he said to her; "there are no traces of him to be seen; he will not shoot again to-day. Come, I beg you, Miss Mertens, tell me all about it."
It appeared that knowing that Elizabeth was going to the village, the governess had gone to meet her in the narrow forest path. As she was slowly descending the mountain she saw all that Elizabeth had seen. The villain's intentions were plain, but she had been so paralyzed by fright that she had not been able to move nor cry out. She stood fastened to the spot with deadly terror, when suddenly Elizabeth, whom she had not seen, stood behind the assassin. In her horror at her friend's danger, the cry for help escaped her which had been heard simultaneously with the report of the pistol. She related all this hurriedly, and in conclusion added: "Where did you get the courage, Elizabeth, to seize the man? I shudder at the mere thought of touching him, and should have screamed loudly instead."