"What does this mean, Ella?" exclaimed Reinhold, now in passionate excitement. "You have recognised me, as well as I have you. Why this tone between us?"
She looked at him; in that glance lay the whole reply; icy-cold, annihilating scorn; he had indeed never deemed it possible that Ella's eyes could look thus, but he turned his to the ground beneath them.
"Will you be so good as to leave us the road free, Signor?" she repeated in perfectly pure Italian, as if she imagined that he did not understand German. There lay a positive tone of command in the words, and Reinhold--obeyed. His self-possession quite lost, he moved aside and let her pass. He saw how she descended the steps with the child, how a servant below, in strange livery, who seemed to have waited, joined them, and how all three hurried through the gardens; but he himself still stood above on the terrace and tried to remember whether he had been dreaming and the whole had not been merely a picture of his imagination.
The noisy locking of the door which led to the picture gallery, brought him back to his senses. A few steps took him there, and throwing the door open roughly he entered the saloon, where the steward of Mirando was just engaged in letting the blinds down again, which he had drawn up to give a better light.
"Who was the lady with the child, who was just now on the terrace?" With this hasty question, Reinhold rushed in upon the man, who seemed shocked when he saw his master's guest before him, having believed him still to be in S----; he hesitated with his reply in evident confusion.
"Pardon me, Signor, I had no idea that you had returned already, and as Eccellenza and the Signor Capitano are only expected this evening, I ventured----"
"Who was the lady?" persisted Reinhold, in feverish impatience, without paying attention to the answer. "Where did she come from?--quick, I must know it!"
"From the villa Fiorina," said the steward half-wonderingly, half-frightened at the questioner's eagerness. "The strange lady wished to see Mirando, and let her servant apply for her. Eccellenza has certainly ordered that no visitors are to be admitted during his residence here, but this morning no one was at home, so I thought I might make an exception;" he paused, and then added, in a tone of entreaty, "It would be sure to cause me great trouble with Eccellenza, if Signor Rinaldo were to tell him."
"I? no," said Reinhold, absently, "what was the lady's name?"
"Erlau, if I understood rightly."