"It is I, Hartmann," said she, mastering an involuntary shudder and appearing before him calm and composed. "Your father was just warning me not to go on my way alone, and yet I must go on."
At the sound of her voice, Ulric seemed first to realise that it was actually Eugénie Berkow who stood before him, and no mere vision of his heated fancy. He would have rushed up to her, but that look and tone still kept their old influence over him. As he listened, a calmer and milder expression came over his face.
"What are you doing here, my lady?" he asked uneasily, his rough imperious manner softening into one that was almost gentle. "There is ill work among us to-day, which is not for women to see, least of all for you. You must not stay here."
"I want to go to my husband," said Eugénie quickly.
Formerly she had almost invariably spoken of Arthur as "Heir Berkow;" now she called him her husband, in a tone which seemed to make Ulric understand all that was implied in that one word.
In the first moment of his surprise he had not reflected how or why she had come there so suddenly; now he glanced quickly, first at her travelling dress, and then around, as though in quest of her carriage and attendants.
"I am alone," said Eugénie, catching this glance, "and it is that which prevents my going on. I am not afraid of any actual danger, but of the insults I might be exposed to. You offered me your escort and protection once, Hartmann, when I did not need them. Now I mean to make a claim on both. Lead me over to the house. You can, if you will."
The Manager had stood by, anxiously looking on, expecting that at any moment his son might attack the wife of a master he so hated, and ready to rush in between them. He could not understand Eugénie's tone of quiet assurance towards a man whom she, like every one else, must know to be the real instigator of the whole rebellion. Now as she made this request wishing to entrust herself to the rebel leader's safe keeping, the old man's bewilderment knew no bounds. He looked at her in horrified amazement.
As to Ulric, he was roused to violent anger by the demand made upon him. That milder gleam had vanished, and the old imperious defiance had come back to him.
"I am to lead you over?" he said in a low hoarse voice. "And you ask that of me, my lady, of me?"