'Have the English chestnut saddled. Be as quick as possible. I must follow the Count at once.'
The old man withdrew hastily. He saw that an effort was to be made to avert some danger from his young master.
Oswald went up to the Countess, who sat trembling and pale as ashes, and essayed to reassure her.
'Try to be calm. Nothing is lost as yet. The chestnut is one of the swiftest horses in the stables, and if I take the road by Neuenfeld, I shall cut off a third of the distance. I must come up with Edmund.'
'And when you do come up with him!' cried the Countess despairingly. 'He will not listen to you any more than to me or to his affianced wife.'
'He will listen to me,' said Oswald, with profound emphasis; 'for I alone can put an end to the conflict raging within him. Had I this morning known the real situation, things would not have reached this pass. We have been friends from our earliest childhood. That must count. You will see, we shall win through this trouble yet. Courage, aunt. I will bring your son back to you.'
The young man's brave, resolute tone was not without its influence on the tortured mother. She clung to the hope held out to her, clung to the once dreaded, hated Oswald as to a last anchor of salvation. Not a word could she utter, but the look she cast up at him was so suppliant, so heart-rending, that Oswald, deeply moved, clasped her hand in his. In their anxiety about the one being they loved with almost equal fervour, the long-cherished enmity died out, the hatred and rancour of years were buried.
Oswald took the half-fainting lady in his arms, and gently placed her in an arm-chair--then he hurried out. The hope of achieving a rescue gave him courage and confidence; but to the mother who remained behind, the weight of anguish, the cruel suspense, proved well-nigh crushing. She knew but too well what had driven her son to his death; and this terrible consciousness, now brought home to her, put the last stroke to the torture of the past few weeks. Baron Heideck was right. The unhappy woman's punishment was greater even than her offence had been.
Everard had urged the grooms to the utmost alacrity. The horse was being led round as Oswald emerged from the castle. He swung himself into the saddle and galloped off.
It might safely be assumed that Edmund would choose the highroad. The way by Neuenfeld, though considerably shorter, ran for the most part through the forest, and was so narrow and uneven that it would have been hardly practicable with a sledge. To a horseman it offered no great difficulties, and the chestnut was, indeed, incomparably swift of pace. Its hoofs hardly touched the ground where the snow lay thick, but not so deep as to prove an obstacle. So the good steed pressed on through the woods all gaunt and rigid with frost and ice, through a village which lay, as it were, still sleeping in its winter shroud--onwards, onwards, with the speed of a bird, yet all too slowly for the craving impatience of him who rode.