"Perhaps you are right! Well, then, I am a daughter of my race and can bleed and die--I cannot submit. If my birth and my education brought me into perpetual conflict with myself, I have solved it by returning here, and this decision is to me irrevocable. I cannot have only half my heart here as well as there; I have made my choice, and if it costs me happiness and life, be it so, I will die by it."
There was such unyielding resolution in the words that Gerald did not even attempt a reply. He gazed silently at the young girl, who stood before him so pale and gloomy; then his eyes wandered slowly around the squalid room, with its smoking fire and smoke-blackened walls, and a vague presentiment stole over him that this external and internal conflict could end only with life.
"So I am to part from you as a foe, for I still remain one in your eyes," he said at last. "Danira, have you really no other word of farewell for me?"
An expression of passionate grief flashed into the girl's face for one moment, but she quickly repressed the gentler emotion, and the next moment her features revealed nothing but iron harshness and cold aversion.
"I fear, Herr von Steinach, that I have already detained you too long from your 'duty.' I must remind you of it, apparently. You have doubtless come to occupy the village with your men. We have no arms against superior numbers; the house is open!"
Gerald stepped back. The sharp admonition showed him that any attempt at conciliation would be vain, and he, too, could be proud to sternness.
"You are mistaken, Fräulein," he replied. "I do not come on military duty. I am in search of a wounded comrade here in the hamlet, whom I expected to find in this house. At any rate, I beg you to give me news of him."
"A wounded officer? There is some misunderstanding. No Austrian is here."
"But our troops occupied the village this morning. We have positive news of that."
"Yes, but in less than an hour they left it and marched on."