Dernburg had stepped to the window. He seemed to have grown older by years in these few days, but however bitter the experience might have been, it had not quelled his spirit,--that iron will of his was stamped upon every movement. There was something that awed in the stern rigidity of his features, whence every trace of mildness had flown. He silently gazed over at the works. The chimneys there were still smoking, the furnaces glowed, all the mighty forces of those restless activities were still astir, still toiled thousands of hands. "To-morrow all this will lie there still and dead--for how long?"
Involuntarily he had spoken these last words aloud, and Wildenrod, who had drawn near, heard him.
"Why, it will not last long," said he confidently. "In your hands lies the power, and it can do the Odensburgers no harm, if at last they are made sensible of this. This riff-raff, that left you in the lurch without ceremony to run after the first hunter that whistled to them! Such a set----"
"Oscar, you are speaking of my workmen!" interrupted Dernburg angrily.
"Yes, indeed, of your workmen, who showed you their devotion in such a touching manner! I can feel with you what was then passing in your soul."
"No, Oscar, that you cannot," said Dernburg, with grave earnestness. "You have come as a stranger to Odensburg. With you, your future position here is only a question of power. Perhaps, hereafter, it must be the same for me, but formerly it was different. I stood at the head of my workmen, but all that I did was done with them and for them, and as each one could depend upon me, in times of danger and distress, I believed that I could depend upon them, every one. That is all over now! Fool that I was! They want no peace, they want war!"
"Yes, that is what they want," remarked Wildenrod, "and they shall find us ready. We shall soon put down this rebellious Odensburg."
"Oh, certainly, we are going to conquer," exclaimed Dernburg with intense bitterness. "I shall force my workmen to subjection and they will submit; but with hatred and malice in their hearts--with hatred against me! Every apparent reconciliation will only be an armistice, during which they will gather new forces, in order to hurl them against me, and then I shall be obliged to quell them again, and thus the breach will become wider and wider, until one party is destroyed. Such a life I cannot bear!"
With an impetuous movement he turned away from the window, as though he could no longer endure the sight of his works over there, and his voice had a weary sound, as he continued:
"I have always thought that I would hold the reins at Odensburg as long as I lived, but for eight days past, I have been thinking differently. Who knows, Oscar, whether I may not turn over the management to you. even during my lifetime. In the crisis ahead of us, perhaps you would fill the place better than I."