And she went; darting by him and taking the path which led across the fields.
Hartmann stood gazing after her with eyes which glowed again, paying no heed to his father's prayers and remonstrances. He understood better than the old man what she intended by this venture, what she wished to compel him to. But this time he would not yield to her. She might perish on the threshold of her own house, in sight of her husband, before he would take her back to the arms of a man he hated, before he ...
At this moment a troop of miners made their appearance, excited and uproarious, coming from the place of meeting to rejoin their leader. The foremost of them was only some hundred paces off. They had already noticed the solitary female figure before them; in another minute she would be recognised, and he himself had, but half-an-hour ago, been goading on these men to blind fury against all that bore the name of Berkow.
Eugénie went forward to meet the danger, not attempting even to conceal her face. In his desperation Ulric stamped on the ground; then he tore himself free from his father, and in an instant was at her side.
"Put down your veil," he said, and grasped her hand with an iron grasp.
Eugénie obeyed, drawing a deep breath of relief. She was safe now; she knew he would not loose his hold on her hand again, if all the men on the works were to attack them at once. She had gone on deliberately to meet the danger, with full consciousness of what she was doing, but also with the conviction that nothing short of her visible and imminent peril would win for her that protection which had been refused.
They now came up to the troop of insurgents, who at once attempted to throng round their leader so as to place him in their midst, but he briefly and emphatically bade them make way, and ordered them over to the shafts without loss of time. They obeyed at once as their comrades had done previously, and Ulric, who had not halted for so much as a second, drew his companion on more rapidly than ever. She began to see plainly how impossible it would have been for her to force a passage through by herself, and how idle any other protection would have proved than that which was at her side.
This stretch of meadow-land, usually so peaceful, was to-day the scene of busy surging tumult, although the actual strife was confined to the neighbourhood of the shafts. Knots of miners were trooping about, or standing closely grouped together in noisy conference. Everywhere angry faces and threatening gestures were to be seen, everywhere turmoil and confusion reigned paramount, an object only seemed wanting for them to give vent to their wild excitement by some deed of violence.
Happily, the footpath skirted the edge of the fields where the tumult was relatively less, but even here Ulric no sooner showed himself than he became the centre of observation, and was greeted everywhere with loud shouts, in which there mingled a certain note of surprise. A host of astonished, distrustful, suspicious glances were levelled at the female figure by his side. No one guessed that, attired in that dark travelling-dress and thick veil, the master's wife was passing through their midst. Had any one fancied he recognised her gait and bearing, such a notion would have been scouted by the others.
Ulric Hartmann was protecting her, and he would most surely never have accorded his protection to any one connected with the house of Berkow; still it was a lady who was walking with him, the Manager's rough, uncourteous son, though he cared nothing for women generally, not even for Martha Ewers, who was cared for, in some degree, by almost every unmarried man in the place.