"Yes, sir," replied the handsome youth, turning, half round on his seat.
"Have you heard from your cousin?"
"I saw him yesterday myself. He will be on the strand near Barow punctually at five. He has his two best horses. They will trot with you until to-morrow at the same hour."
"That is more than I want, if you know the track to Barow?"
"If I know it? I drive it every day. But I should not advise any one who does not know it as well as I do to drive alone."
"Why not?"
"The Barow people have cut hole upon hole into the ice; and where they stop the Ferrytown holes begin. You see nothing but blue water on your right and on your left. Cheer up, Fox!"
The crop-eared horse went faster, and the two men relapsed into silence. Both listened carefully, but with very different feelings. Claus Lemberg enjoyed the adventure, because it stirred up his strong nerves most delightfully, and brought out his cunning and his courage, the two qualities which he was proudest of in his whole nature. The other man looked at it more thoughtfully. He knew he was taking a step which he could never retrace, a step which was to decide not only his own fate--that mattered little--but also the fate of another being, a woman, who had won a right to his love by her own sacrificing love, a woman who had given up rank and riches, and every advantage which her birth and her social position gave her, for the sole purpose of being his, and who now was waiting for him in anxiety and anguish on yonder shore, from which the lights began to beckon to him. His heart was naturally full of anxious care. He had broken off the bridge behind him; he was hastening toward a future as black as the night by which he was surrounded, but by no means lighted up by as many bright, sparkling stars. But no matter--the die is cast; he cannot go back. Forward then, forward! What is that? A sleigh coming behind us?
Oswald raised himself and listened, but Claus's sharp ears had already discovered the direction from which the sound came.
"It is a two-horse sleigh from over yonder," he said, turning a little to the right. "They have fine horses; they'll be here directly."