"Of course I'll go."
Emily had watched their conversation from a distance. She saw them leave the ball-room, laughing, arm in arm. Oswald also had disappeared. Suddenly, a terrible fear overcame her. She had been the first to couple Oswald's name with Helen's name, to gratify her mad desire to be avenged on him, and it was she who had, for the same purpose, informed Felix of her pretended discovery. She had commenced telling the same story to-night again, merely for the purpose of making an end to Cloten's stupid teasing. Now only she became aware that she had gone too far, and that she had, in all probability, exposed Oswald to very great danger. And yet she loved him still with the whole strength of her passionate heart. She might have murdered him with her own hands when the fit of mad jealousy was on her, but the thought of exposing him to brutal ill-treatment at the hands of Cloten and others was terrible to her. She looked around in the ball-room to see where help might be found.
Her brother happened to come near her. She called him:
"What do you want, little one?"
"Have you seen Doctor Stein?"
"Yes, why?"
"Did you not intend asking him out for a few days during the hunting season? I am afraid it would look badly if we were to drop him so suddenly altogether."
Emily had blushed deep purple as she said these words; her usual presence of mind seemed to have forsaken her utterly.
"Invite him out!" cried Adolphus; "well, would not that be nice? So as to make the stupid report immortal that Lisbeth has started about you and him,--invite him to our house?--why, rather----"
"I pray you, Adolphus, be quiet! They can hear you all over the room!"