Waldemar smiled slightly.
"That is nothing new to me. I pass along it often enough."
"But not on foot and at dusk! Do you not know, or will you not own to yourself, that there is danger for you in these journeys?"
The smile vanished from Nordeck's face, giving way to its accustomed gravity. "If I had had any doubt of that, I should have been enlightened by the bullet which, not long ago, as I was coming home from the border-station, sped so close by my head that it ruffled my hair. The marksman did not show himself. He was probably ashamed of his--unskilfulness."
"Well, after such an experience, it is really challenging danger to ride out so constantly quite alone," cried Wanda, who could not altogether conceal her alarm at this news.
"I never go unarmed," replied Waldemar, "and no companion could protect me against a shot fired in ambush. In the present state of affairs at Wilicza, my personal ascendancy is the one influence which still avails. If I show fear and take all sorts of precautionary measures, there will be an end to my authority. If I continue to face all their attacks alone, they will desist from them."
"But suppose that bullet had not missed," said Wanda, with a little quiver in her voice. "You see how near the danger was."
The young man bent half over her seat.
"Was it a desire to avert from me some such peril as this which made you insist on my coming with you?"
"Yes," was the hardly audible reply.