"Fräulein!"
No answer, nor the slightest movement.
Hermann bent down and lifted her up. She received his help silently, and whilst she mechanically raised her head, her eyes gazed unconsciously at his face.
"You are not well! May I offer you my assistance as far as the village?"
He ought not to have spoken, for with the tone of his voice came back at once strength and consciousness, and with it hostility against him. There it was once more, that terrified shrinking, which she had shown in the morning, the same strange hostile look returned to her eyes, it seemed, as if in the one feeling of detestation against him, even the remembrance of the last quarter of an hour was forgotten.
"I need no help--I am well--quite well--"
She walked a few steps, but tottered, and was obliged to lean against a tree to keep herself from falling. The wind shook the branches and sent a shower of leaves down upon her; the first flash of lightning quivered through the air, and a distant growl of thunder followed it. Hermann, who had again turned away, once more returned to the young girl, and said, with a decision, through which some bitterness sounded--
"I am sorry to be troublesome to you by my presence, but you are not well, mein Fräulein. You are alone, and a stranger here, and the village is half an hour's distance from this spot. You will therefore accept my assistance, and the assurance that I will not be troublesome to you a moment longer than is actually necessary."
Quietly, as if a refusal were unheard of, he took her arm, like that of a child, to lead her, but this had a truly alarming effect upon Gertrud. As if stung by a snake, she could not have started more fearfully, nor shrunk back with greater horror. With almost a cry she tore her hand out of his, and Hermann seemed suddenly to behold a changed being before him. Nothing more of the "child" was to be seen; her figure, as she stood before him, drawn up to her full height, had something commanding and powerful about it. So mysterious was this commanding glance, that any one else would have quailed before it, as with a tone and expression which perfectly electrified the Count, she cried, threateningly--
"Do not touch me, Count Arnau. I will not accept of your assistance!"