"Cecilia, how could you treat me so?" said the young man reproachfully. "Did you not think of my distress, my despair, if anything had happened to you? Had I only suspected that it was more than a jest that time when you threatened to climb it, in your talk with Egbert and me----what is the matter with you?"
At the mention of that name, Cecilia had shuddered; now a couple of tears rolled over her cheeks, while she murmured: "Pardon me, Eric--pardon me!"
Eric had never before seen his beloved weep, nor ever heard her plead for pardon. With overflowing tenderness he kissed her hands. "My Cecile, my darling girl, I am not scolding you, I only beg of you, never, never again to undertake such an adventure. You promise me that, do you not? Done! And now----"
"Now we will indulge her with a little rest. Try to sleep a few hours, Cecile; that will soothe your overtaxed nerves. Come, Eric!"
The latter followed, evidently very unwillingly, but since Cecilia, too, urged him to go with feverish impatience, he submitted. Oscar accompanied him as far as the stairs, and then went into his own room. Hardly, however, had the sound of the young man's steps died away outside, than he returned to his sister, after bolting the parlor door.
"How can you be so wanting in self-control?" said he, in a suppressed voice. "A blessed thing it was that I was by your side. Under these circumstances, the best thing to do was to make a clean breast of your mountain adventure. But the thing now is to ward off another danger. Without proof, Runeck will not venture to undertake anything against us, and meanwhile things are coming to a pass that must necessitate a rupture between him and Dernburg. Until then--well, I have been equal to worse emergencies!" These last words once more betrayed all the rash self-confidence of the man, who had already often staked everything upon the one card and won the game.
Cecilia had risen from her seat; her eyes were fastened upon him, with a singular expression in them. "Then we shall be no more at Odensburg," said she. "Do not flare up so, Oscar! I do not want to know what you conceal from me; what you said to me was enough. You must arm yourself against a danger that threatens you on the part of Runeck--he told the truth, then--he can accuse you. But I shall not be an adventuress, who has thrust herself in here and who will one day be driven away in shame and disgrace--do you hear?--I shall not! Let us begone, no matter whither, under some pretext or other--only away from here, at any price!"
"Are you out of your senses?" cried Wildenrod, while he seized her arm, as though he had to hinder her from taking to flight that very moment. "Away? Whither? Think you that I can again open to you our former mode of life? That is past--my sources of revenue are at an end!"
"I hate to think of those sources of revenue," cried Cecilia, trembling. "I want to work----"
Oscar laughed aloud and bitterly. "With those hands, perhaps? Do you know, what it is to toil for daily bread? One has to be brought up to it--people like us would starve at it."