There was no reply. The general seemed to know nothing of what was around him.
"Count Steinrück!"
Still the same distressing silence. The Count leaned back motionless, his eyes gazing into vacancy, his labouring breath the only sign that he still lived.
"Grandfather!"
The word came gently and with hesitation from the lips that had resolved never to utter it, but it was spoken, and it dissolved the old man's icy torpor. Steinrück started, and suddenly buried his face in his hands.
"Grandfather, look at me!" Michael at last broke forth. "Break this fearful silence; say at least one word to me."
Obeying as if mechanically, the general dropped his hands and looked up at the young man. "Michael," he groaned, "you are avenged!"
It was indeed a Nemesis. Upon this very spot the son, tortured by the disgrace of his father's memory, had declared to his pitiless grandfather, "Your scutcheon is not so lofty and unimpeachable as the sun in the heavens; a day may come when it will wear a stain that you cannot efface, and then you will feel what an implacable judge you have been." The day had come, and had felled at one stroke the mighty old oak that had defied so many tempests.
"Courage!" said Michael. "You must not succumb now. Remember what is at stake. We must devise some plan."
It was the right appeal to make. The thought of the peril that menaced him roused the general from his dull despair. He arose, at first with difficulty, but as he stood once more erect he seemed to recover his self-possession.