Adelaide's lips quivered. She knew only too well that he was right, but she did not answer.
"And what binds you to this man?" continued Rojanow, still more impressively. "A word--a single 'Yes' uttered by you without knowing its full meaning--without knowing yourself. Shall it bind you for your life? Shall it make us both miserable? No, Ada, love the eternal, undying right of the human heart does not bow before that. People may call it guilt, they may call it doom. We stand now under this doom, and must follow it; a single word shall not part us."
Far off at the horizon the flame burst up with such glaring light that it shone also over the opening on the hill.
Hartmut stood for a moment in this light. He was now so fully the son of his mother; resembling so closely her beautiful but pernicious features; but it was that flash of lightning that brought Adelaide back to consciousness; or had it shown her the unholy fire which burned in his eyes? She retreated with an expression of unveiled horror.
"A solemnly given and accepted word is a vow," she said slowly, "and he who breaks it breaks his honor."
Hartmut started. Sudden and glaring like that flash of lightning flamed up a remembrance in his mind--the resemblance of that hour when he had given a solemn word--a word of honor, and--had broken it!
Adelaide von Wallmoden straightened her slender figure; her features still showed the deathly pallor as she continued in a low but steady tone to Rojanow:
"Abandon this persecution which I have felt for weeks. I shudder before you--at your eyes, your words. I feel that it is destruction that goes out from you, and one does not love that."
"Ada!"
Passionate entreaty sounded in the word, but the low voice of Adelaide gained firmness quickly as she continued: