"Be reasonable, Cecilia! Have you lost all power of self-control? You must show yourself again to the guests and bid them farewell, Eric may come in any minute. Do collect yourself!"
No answer, only convulsive, inconsolable weeping.
"I dreaded something of the sort, and therefore sought you, but I was not prepared for such an outbreak as this. Cecilia, you must compose yourself."
"I cannot!" gasped Cecilia with half-stifled voice. "Leave me, Oscar! I have been obliged to smile and lie this livelong day--must do so again when I sit in that carriage with Eric--I'll die if I cannot take my cry out this once--only this single time."
The brother must have perceived that he could effect nothing here by the assumption of a domineering tone, for his voice was milder, when he rejoined:
"There it is again, that wretched passionateness of your disposition, you should say to yourself, that this is the last of all hours, in which to abandon yourself thus. I have done everything to secure to you your happiness and you----"
"My happiness?" repeated Cecilia with sarcastic bitterness. "Why that lie, Oscar?--we are alone. You managed to deceive me so long as I was a thoughtless child, but you know the day that opened my eyes. You only wanted, through me, to pave the way to your own fortune, when you set yourself to make a match between Eric and me. You wanted to be master of Odensburg, therefore, I had to be the victim."
"And if I had this aim in view, I lifted you up with myself," cried Wildenrod with emphasis. "I have told you, often enough, that the question here for both of us is 'to be or not to be.' You consider yourself a victim do you? Why, to-day you received princely homage, and as those endless throngs of dependents marched past you, surely it must have become clear to you, what significance the name that you now bear, has in the world. That life in Odensburg, which you dreaded so, is to be spared you. You are to return to Italy. Eric worships you, he lives only in your looks, and will leave no wish of yours ungratified, showering upon you everything that wealth can give. What more can you ask of your marriage? This is good fortune, and one day you will thank me for it."
"Never! never!" cried the young woman, beside herself. "Oh! that I had fled from this good fortune! But you--you compelled my submission by the dreadful threat that you would follow our father's example, and I had to stay in order to save you. You have no idea, what torture I have endured since that time, in the midst of all Eric's goodness and tenderness. I never have loved him, never will love him, and now that the chain is irrevocably forged, I feel that it will crush me. I would rather lie down in death than in his arms!"
She suddenly hushed. "What was that?" she asked quickly.