"I have been hunting, but the weather is unpropitious, and I was about to discharge my gun----"
He did not finish, for the sad, reproachful glance upon him told that the lie was in vain. He broke off and looked gloomily before him. Adelaide, too, gave up all pretense, and in her voice all her anxiety trembled as she cried: "Herr von Falkenried, what did you intend to do?"
"What would have now been done had you not interfered," said Hartmut, harshly. "And believe me, gracious lady, it would have been better if coincidence had brought you here a few moments later."
"It was no coincidence. I was at the forestry at Rodeck, and heard that you had been gone for hours. An awful presentiment drove me to look for you here. I was almost sure I should find you here."
"You looked for me? Me, Ada?" His voice shook at the question. "How did you know that I was at the forestry?"
"Through Prince Adelsberg, who called to see me this morning. You received a letter from him?"
"No, only a communication," returned Hartmut with quivering lips. "No single word was directed to me personally in the short lines; they brought only a communication in a business tone which the Prince thought necessary. I fully understood it."
Adelaide was silent; she had known it would drive him to suicide. Slowly she walked with him under the protection of the trees, for it was hardly possible to keep erect out in the open space in this raging storm, but Hartmut did not seem to feel it.
"You know the contents of the communication--I see that you do," he commenced again, "and it is not new to you, either. You overheard what happened that night at Rodeck, but believe me, Ada, what I felt at that moment when you stood before me in that ghostly glow which shone through that night, and it grew clear to me that I had been ground into the dust before you--what I felt might have satisfied even my father's vengeance, might have atoned for all my sin."
"You do him wrong," replied the young widow solemnly. "You saw him only in the stern, iron inflexibility with which he cast you from him. I saw him differently after you had gone. He broke down there in wild anguish; he then let me look into the heart of a despairing father who loved his son above everything. Have you not made an attempt since then to convince him?"