"The point in question is your destiny, not mine."
"Which, however, seems to be somewhat nearly connected with me. Or did you want me to believe you were doing all this for the service of God? Pshaw, my dear friend, our acquaintance is not a thing of yesterday, and our paths do not cross here and now for the first time. I have been in your way, and you in mine, on the schoolroom benches, the playground, at the dancing-lessons, and everywhere; I supplanted you in those days, and gave you a punishment to remember all your life. Well, you have done so, and this is the reprisal. I have lost the game--by a single foolish play--no matter! I have lost it; and I am too old a gambler not to understand and feel that it is my fate; but the game is not yet over; we shall meet again, and he who laughs last, laughs best."
The man's eyes flashed glances of deadly hate, as he strode up and down the room with hasty steps. His sharp teeth gnawed his livid lips, and he tugged and tore at the ends of his long fair mustache, as he again paused and said:--
"Only one question more. Shall I also have to provide the dowry?"
"I don't know what you mean by that; I only know we intend to leave you to take your own course as soon as you have paid your debt--outwardly at least--and replaced the sum stolen. You will have a chance to do so to-morrow. It is gambler's money, but that don't concern us."
"And if I don't win?"
"You will work. Dollan has been leased to you for five years more; you can, if you choose--and you will be compelled to choose--pay back in less than half the time the ten thousand thalers I shall advance to you--it is almost the last remnant of my fortune. At any rate the package will be found on Dollan moor to-morrow evening, and day after to-morrow be in the coffers of the convent."
"How well you have provided for yourself!"
"And you too. If we drove you from your home, as you deserve--for you are not worthy to have German laborers call you master--you would go to ruin in the shortest possible time, and that, for your child's sake, I do not desire."
Brandow essayed a scornful laugh, but Gotthold's last words, and the tone in which he uttered them, closed his lips.