"Then .... I implore you to yield."
Again there was the same abrupt transition from ruthless menace to almost supplicating entreaty which had disarmed her once already. It melted her anger now as she looked down on the young miner, dark and wrathful, but yet gazing up at her in unmistakable anxiety.
"I cannot accept your offer, Hartmann," said she gravely. "If your comrades are stirred up to such a pitch of irritation that I cannot meet them without being exposed to insult, I fear it has been your doing alone, and a man who bears us so deadly a hatred" ...
"Us!" interrupted Ulric impetuously. "I bear you no hatred, my lady, and I'll take care you are not insulted. Not a man among them dares say a word against you when I am by, and if he dared to do it once, he would not a second time. Let me go with you!"
Eugénie hesitated a few seconds, but her fearless nature and the thought of his former hostile tone turned the scale against him.
"I will turn back and avoid the high road," said she quickly. "You must stay here, Hartmann. Consideration for Herr Berkow requires it."
At the sound of this name his long pent-up anger burst forth. His eyes flashed, and a gleam of savage hatred darted like lightning from them.
"Consideration for Herr Berkow!" he broke out, "for Herr Berkow, who shows you such tender care, allowing you to ride out alone, when he knows we have been up at the forges and must be about the woods now. But the truth is, he never has given himself any concern about you. It is all the same to him whether you are unhappy or not, and yet the whole responsibility of it lies at his door."
"Hartmann, how dare you speak so!" exclaimed Eugénie, glowing with anger and indignation, but she strove in vain to stop him. He went on with ever-growing excitement.
"No doubt, it is a great crime to have caught you crying, when you thought there was not a soul about to notice it; but I am pretty sure that you have shed tears enough, my lady, since you came here, only no one has been by to see, as I was just now. I know who is to blame for it, and I will make him" ...