Wanda started suddenly, and a half-suppressed cry passed her lips. The next moment the princess stood at her side.
"What is it? Do you see anything?"
"No; but I think I hear a sound of hoofs in the distance."
"I fear it is only imaginary, we have so often been deceived."
The two women leaned far out of the window, and listened in breathless silence. They fancied they heard a sound distant and half audible, but the wind rose anew and drowned it. After some ten minutes of agonized suspense, a sound of muffled footsteps was heard in an alley of the park which led into the forest. By straining their eyes to the utmost, Wanda distinguished amid the darkness two forms emerging from among the trees.
"They are here," whispered Fabian, with white lips, as he burst suddenly into the room. "They are coming down the side-steps, and will enter through the back gate which I opened half an hour ago." Wanda's first impulse was to rush to meet them, but Gretchen held her back. "We are not alone in the castle," she said; "we must be quiet and cautious."
A few moments passed, then the door opened softly. Count Morynski stood on the threshold, and behind him towered up Waldemar's stately form. That very instant Wanda was clasped in her father's arms.
The professor and his wife had tact enough to withdraw, and Waldemar also followed them, giving both a cordial greeting.
"What a desperate undertaking, you have been engaged in, Waldemar!" said Professor Fabian. "Supposing you had been discovered?"
Waldemar smiled. "Before engaging in any bold venture, we must count the chances," he said; "in leaning over a precipice, if we think of dizziness, we are lost. I went straight on to my purpose, looking neither to the right nor the left."