"But if I entreat?"
There was an instant's pause; in the brilliant light Wolfgang could distinguish every feature in the girl's face turned upward in genuine entreaty, and in that of the man who bent over her so close that he wellnigh touched her curls. The daring, reckless tone had vanished from his voice; it sounded low, but infinitely tender, as he rejoined, "You entreat me?"
"Yes--from my heart! Do not persist in such folly. It troubles me."
Ernst smiled, and replied, in a voice strangely gentle for one so impatient of control,--
"You shall be obeyed. Sweet as it would be to know, were I in any danger, that one human being was anxious on my account, I relinquish my project."
The sharp needles of the pine bough about which Wolfgang had clasped his hand in a nervous grasp pierced his flesh, but he did not feel them. The hill of fire, which was still glowing erect, tottered, some of the logs gave way, and the burning pile fell into ruins, crashing and crackling, while from the dazzling heap a thousand tongues of flame curled along the ground, illuminating now only a comparatively narrow circle, while the meadow and the hillock vanished in darkness.
"It was a magnificent sight, was it not?" Benno asked gaily, approaching his friend and laying his hand upon the one clasping the pine. "But, Wolf, what is the matter with you? You have an attack of fever,--you are trembling, and your hand is icy cold."
"There is nothing the matter," said Wolfgang. "I may have taken a little cold here in the damp."
"Taken cold on this summer evening? a fellow of your iron constitution? You are ill."
But Elmhorst withdrew the hand the doctor would have taken: "Pray do not make so much of a slight indisposition; such attacks go as quickly as they come. I felt it as we were walking up here."