"What? Fräulein von Harder is not in her apartments?"
"The Baroness is in your Excellency's study, and has been waiting there for more than an hour," a servant replied.
No comment was made to this, but the step approached at a quickened pace; the door was thrown open, and Raven appeared. His first glance fell on Gabrielle, who had come out from the window, and now stood before him, trembling in every limb. He guessed why she had chosen to wait for him there. In an instant he was at her side.
"T was going over to your rooms, when they told me you were here;" he spoke in a breathless, hurried tone. "I could not possibly send any news to tranquillise you. The riot is only just quelled. All is quiet for the moment. I came up here at once."
Gabrielle tried to answer him, but her voice forsook her. She could not force a sound from her lips. Raven looked at the fair, pale face, on which the torture of the last few hours was but too legibly written. He made a movement, as though to draw her to his side, but as yet the habit of self-mastery prevailed. The arm he had raised fell to his side, his chest heaved, and he drew a deep, deep breath.
"And now, Gabrielle, repeat to me the words you spoke a while ago in the carriage, the words with which you repelled me."
"What words?" asked Gabrielle, in painful embarrassment.
"Tell me again the untruth, by the help of which you tried to deceive both yourself and me. Look me in the face, and repeat to me that you love Winterfeld, and are determined to be his. If you can do that, you shall never again be troubled by a word from me. But say it, say it out plainly."
The girl drew back. "Oh, let me go! I--I--oh, let me go, for Heaven's sake!"
"No, I will not let you go, Gabrielle!" broke out Raven, passionately. "The tale must be told, once for all. I must now put into words that secret which you have long known, the secret which has been mine since I first looked into those sunny, childish eyes. Soon, very soon after that, I heard from your own lips that you loved another. I felt that a man thirty years your senior, with hair showing streaks of grey, would incur the terrible curse of ridicule, if he confessed to you his ardent, unreciprocated attachment, and I, by Heaven! I vowed none should ridicule me. But to-day I saw that you trembled for my safety, that you would have rushed into the danger yourself only to remain at my side--and now you do not dare repeat those words, because you feel they convey a lie which would cost us both all our future happiness. Now, at last, let things be made clear between us. I love you, Gabrielle, and I have fought against my love, calling to my aid all my strength and all my pride. The dream should be over, I said, and the presumptuous word has cost me dearly. When I meant forcibly to subdue and crush out the passion within me, it rose with tenfold, irresistible might, and taught me to know its power. I behaved towards you with harsh, cold reserve, wrapping myself in it as in a mantle. I sought a rescue in separation, in my work, in the battle I am ever waging with all the hostile elements arrayed against me--in vain! I had torn myself from you, but your image was ever present with me, in my dreams, as in my waking hours. It forced itself in upon me here, as I sat at work; it followed me into stirring scenes without, when all the faculties of mind and brain had need to be at full stretch; and when I faced my opponents in the struggle, it gleamed on me like a ray of light through the stormy clouds surrounding me, and compelled my heart, my mind to turn to you--it has conquered my every feeling, every thought. You must be mine, or I must let you go from me for ever. Any third course would bring destruction on us both. Answer me, Gabrielle. Say, whom do you love? For whom did your heart beat so anxiously a little while ago, and what thought aroused the apprehension and tenderness I read in your looks? Speak; I await your decision."