"Was it necessary that some danger should threaten your betrothed to wring from you such an avowal?" the general went on, reproachfully. "Hitherto you have played but a cold, formal part towards Raoul, and it has estranged him from you. Only show him the trembling anxiety for his life that you showed me, and you can do with him what you will; he will be a willing captive."
Hertha's blush deepened, and hurriedly, as if eager at all hazards to change the subject, she said, "You really think all danger over?"
"Yes; the insult as well as the challenge has been retracted in due form. The quarrel is at an end."
"But not the enmity! I could only give you a faint idea last evening of what really passed between them. You do not know what words Raoul made use of,--not concerning the captain himself, but concerning his parents."
"Ah, it was that, then!" muttered Steinrück.
"Do you know anything about them?" the Countess asked, hastily.
"I only know that there is not the slightest stain upon Rodenberg's honour, and that suffices me. How did he receive Raoul's words?"
"Like a wounded lion. He was absolutely terrible: if Raoul had said another word I believe he would have struck him down."
The general's attention was roused by the girl's passionate tone, and he gazed at her with a dawning suspicion in his look, while Hertha, all unconscious of his glance, went on, with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks: "Rodenberg was indignant to the last degree; he silenced Raoul with a look and a tone such as I have never seen and heard before, save once; in you, Uncle Michael, that time at Berkheim, when they brought before you the poacher who had shot our forester; it brought you directly to my mind as you were then."
Steinrück made no reply to these last remarks; he still gazed fixedly at the young Countess, as if trying to decipher something in her features. "Perhaps Raoul's words were not unfounded," he said at last, very slowly. "Who can tell what he may know of Rodenberg's origin?"