"For the moment she seems stunned, but Dr. Reinsfeld is with her."
"Then she will recover from the blow. They love each other, and with the one who is loved best in the world beside you even the worst trials can be borne."
Erna made no reply, but she slowly approached and stood beside him. He looked at her, and his sad face grew still darker: "I know why you are here. You would fain speak some word of sympathy, of consolation to me. But why? Your dying father's curse has borne fruit: the destruction of the ancestral home of the Thurgaus is avenged, and I think even the Freiherr would be content."
"Can you really attach such importance to words which were the result of anger,--of the agitation preceding a sudden death?" Erna asked, reproachfully. "Since when have you been superstitious?"
"Since faith in my own power has lain buried there. Leave me to myself, Erna. What comfort can I take in the sympathy which you offer as an alms, to express which you must have stolen secretly away, and for which you may have to suffer from Herr Waltenberg's reproaches? I need no sympathy, not even from you." In the irritability of misery he turned away and looked up at the Wolkenstein, the crest of which loomed white and shadowy through the clouds. It alone seemed striving to unveil, while a thick mist obscured all the surrounding mountain-tops.
"I do not come secretly, nor to offer you an alms," Erna said, in a voice which she tried vainly to steady. "Ernst knows that I have come to you, and he sends a message by me."
"Ernst Waltenberg--to me?"
"To you, Wolfgang! He bids me tell you that he releases you from your promise, and recalls his challenge."
Elmhorst frowned darkly, as he rejoined, "Has he told you of all that? Very considerate on his part! Such matters are generally discussed among men exclusively. But, although I accepted his conditions, I do not accept his magnanimity,--least of all at present."
"And yet you first set him the example of magnanimity. No need to deny it. He knows as well as I do whose hand snatched him from destruction on this very spot."