"Hush!" interrupted Steinrück, angrily. "I will have no noise, no commotion, but you do not stir from the spot until you have confessed. Confess!"
He seized the young fellow by the arm, and his grasp was like iron, but with a single wrench Michael freed himself. "Let go of me!" he gasped. "Never say that again! Never again, or----"
"What! you would threaten besides?" cried the Count, who took this outburst for the height of insolence. "Take care, boy; one word more, and I shall forget to spare you."
"I am no thief!" shouted Michael; "and whoever dares call me so I'll fell him to the earth!"
In an instant he had seized a heavy silver candelabrum from the table and swung it like a weapon towards the Count, who recoiled a step,--not from the menaced blow, but from the face confronting him. Was that the same young man that had stood there a few moments before with the vacant, dreamy countenance, the timid, sheepish air? He reared his head now like a wounded lion ready to rush upon the stronger foe, rage and savage hatred informing every feature. And Steinrück's eyes, flashing annihilation, encountered two other eyes, dark blue like his own, and gleaming with the same fire. There was one breathless moment. No coward, no thief, ever looked like that.
The door flew open,--the loud, menacing voice must have been heard in the anteroom,--and the forester appeared on the threshold, the frightened face of the servant looking over his shoulder.
"Boy, are you mad?" shouted Wolfram, hastening to his master's aid, and seizing Michael by the shoulder. But the lad shook himself free as a wounded stag shakes off the murderous pack, then dashed the candelabrum on the ground, and rushed to the door. But here he was intercepted by the servant. "Hold him!" the man cried out to the forester. "He must not escape! He has robbed the Herr Count!"
Wolfram, who was about to secure his foster-son, paused in horror. "Michael,--a thief?"
A cry burst from the lips of the tortured boy, a cry so desperate that Steinrück interfered hurriedly, and would have ordered both men to refrain, but it was too late. The servant staggered aside beneath the blow of Michael's powerful young fist, and the lad rushed past him and away, as if goaded to madness by those terrible words.