The authorities of L---- had been informed of the position and the plans of the insurgent forces over the border; a fight was daily expected, and orders had been given to reinforce the frontier garrison. A large detachment of soldiers passed through Villica, and during a brief halt in the village its officers called upon Herr Nordeck, who was obliged to entertain them alone. Now that he had taken an open stand against her party, his mother refused to receive his guests. Late in the afternoon the detachment moved on in season to reach the designated post before dark; and now came Doctor Fabian, the accepted lover and future professor, with his double tidings, which he hoped would call forth the interest and sympathy of his former pupil, compelling him to rejoice in another's happiness while he saw his own sinking into irretrievable ruin. It required an iron nature like Waldemar's to preserve a semblance of equanimity under so many trying circumstances.
Two days had fled since the tragedy at the forester's house. The princess, having passed a restless night, had risen early, and was alone in her private parlor. The gray, misty dawn only partially lighted the lofty room, half of which still lay in shadow. The fire on the hearth threw an uncertain, flickering light upon the carpet and around the form of the lady who sat before it.
Lost in gloomy reflection, she rested her head upon her hand; her heart and mind were full of that event in which her niece had played so prominent a part. The woman who had hitherto shown herself equal to any emergency, was not equal to the present situation. The ruthlessness with which she had unveiled her niece's heart so as to arm her against the passion that had begun to enthrall her, the months of entire separation, that last warning at Radowicz,--all had been in vain; all had vanished before a danger that menaced Waldemar. Wanda had informed her aunt of everything that had occurred at the forester's house; she was too proud, too thoroughly identified with the cause of her people, to allow the least suspicion of treason to rest upon her. She assured her aunt that she had sent no warning, had awakened no suspicion, that she had intervened only at the last moment when nothing else would have saved Waldemar. The wound on her arm attested the manner in which she had intervened.
Waldemar's entrance aroused the princess from these torturing reflections. She knew the reason of his coming. Paul had informed her that after three futile attempts to gain an interview with Wanda that morning, Herr Nordeck had at last succeeded. He approached slowly, and paused before his mother.
"Do you come from Wanda?" she asked.
"I do."
The mother gazed intently into her son's face, which was flushed with excitement, and yet wore an expression of intense but suppressed sorrow.
"Then, in spite of her remonstrances, you forced your way to her! You have at least learned that it was not my command which closed Wanda's door against you. She expressly declared that she did not wish to see you."
"I had a right to see and to speak with Wanda, who has risked her life for me," he said; "I was compelled to speak with her. O, remain calm," he added, bitterly, as the princess was about to make an angry reply; "your niece has fully justified your expectations, and done her best to deprive me of all hope. She insists that she is following her own wishes, while she is blindly submissive to yours; she only echoes your words and opinions. She would have yielded to my influence, if she had not been so completely under yours. You have persuaded her that the promise, which as a mere child you almost forced her to give my brother, is an irrevocable vow, and that to break it would be a deadly sin. You have so inoculated her with your national prejudices--"
"Waldemar!" interposed the princess.