"Father, before everything that is sacred to you in heaven or in earth--oh, do not look at me so terribly. You drive me frantic with that look! Father, I give you my word of honor----"
An awful, wild laugh from his father interrupted him.
"Your word of honor as at that time at Burgsdorf. Get up--abandon acting; you do not deceive me by it. You went from me with a breaking of your word--you return with a lie. Go your own way--I go mine. Only one thing I request of you--command you. Do not dare to use the name of Falkenried by the side of the branded one of Rojanow. Never let the world know who you are. When that happens my blood will be upon you, for then--I end with life!"
With a loud cry Hartmut sprang to his feet and approached his father, but Falkenried repelled him by a commanding gesture.
"Do you think that I still love life? I have borne it because I had to--perhaps I considered it my duty; but there is one point where this duty ends; you know it now--act accordingly."
He turned his back upon his son and walked to the window. Hartmut did not speak another word. Mutely he turned to go.
The ante-room was not lighted, yet it was filled with the glow of the blazing skies outside, and in this glow stood a woman--deathly pale--with eyes fixed with an indescribable expression upon the one approaching.
He glanced up and a single look showed him that she knew all. This was the last. He had received his mortal humiliation before the woman he loved--had been thrown into the dust before her!
Hartmut did not know how he left the castle, how he reached the open air. He only felt that he should stifle in those walls--that he was driven forth with fury and power. He found himself at last under a fir tree, which bowed its snow-covered limbs over him. It was night in the forest--cold, icy winter night, but up there in the sky the mysterious light shone on and on with purple power, with quivering rays, which united at the zenith into a crown.