'I know, aunt, what a heavy burden my uncle laid on you by those directions, but, believe me, I have suffered beneath it even more severely than yourself. It would have been better for me to have been driven out into the world and brought up among strangers, than to pass my life amid splendid surroundings, in a sphere where I have daily, hourly been reminded of my nothingness, where the proud Ettersberg blood in my veins had but to show itself to be instantly repressed. My uncle carried his point, and had me received into this house; beyond that, he made no attempt to shield or protect me. To you I was, from the first, simply a troublesome legacy left by an unfriendly and detested brother-in-law. I was accepted with disinclination, and endured with absolute dislike, and the consciousness of this has sometimes well-nigh driven me desperate. But for Edmund, the one person who showed me any affection, the one who held faithfully by me, in spite of all that was done to estrange us, I could not have borne the life. Gratitude! You require gratitude at my hands? I have never felt any, I never shall feel any towards you; for there is a voice within me which says I am not benefited, but injured. I need not thank, but might ... accuse!'

He flung the last word at her with loud and threatening emphasis. The dykes were broken down, and all the hatred, the bitterness he had secretly borne within him for years flowed out in a stream of fierce rebellion against this woman who, outwardly at least, had been as a mother to him. She had risen in her turn, and they now stood face to face. So might two deadly enemies have measured each other's strength before the fray; the next word would perhaps have led to an irreparable breach, had not Heideck intervened.

'Oswald, you forget yourself!' he cried. 'How can you venture to address such language to your aunt?'

The keen, cold tones of his voice brought reflection to both at the same moment. The Countess sank slowly back into her seat, and her nephew retreated a step. For a few seconds a painful silence reigned. Then Oswald spoke in a changed voice, in a tone freezing as ice:

'You are right; I have to apologize. But at the same time I must beg of you to allow me henceforth to go my own way unhindered. The path I shall follow will, in all probability, take me from Ettersberg for ever, and all further connection may cease between us. I think this is what we all should wish, and it will certainly be best for the family, collectively and individually.'

Then, without waiting for an answer, or any sign of dismissal, he turned and left the room.

'What did that mean?' asked the Countess in a low voice, when the door had closed upon him.

'It meant a threat,' said Heideck. 'Could you not understand it, Constance? It was, I think, plainly enough expressed.'

He sprang up, and paced several times uneasily up and down the room. Even the bureaucrat's cold and measured calm was not proof against such a scene as this. Presently he halted before his sister.

'We must give way. The matter has now assumed a different aspect--a very different aspect. Active resistance on our part might lead to serious trouble--the last few moments have made that evident to me.'