"If you continue to make your insulting jokes," she almost screamed, bursting into tears, "I'll ride straight away from you now, and break my neck."
"Rather a difficult thing to accomplish on that sober nag of yours," was his cool reply.
She was at a loss what to retort and so let her tears fall silently.
At last he adopted a different tone.
"Be sensible for a change, my child, to please me," he said. "All I meant to do was to clear your soul of superfluous tragedy. As soon as you put a bright face on the matter I'll give it practical consideration; I promise you."
She wiped the tears from her eyes with the gauntlet of her riding-glove and forthwith smiled obediently.
"That's all right," he said with approval. "Not in vain did the poet sing:
'O weine selten, weine schwer.
Wer Tränen hat, hat auch Malheur.'
Well, now, I'll tell you a fairy tale. We two pretty orphan children were just planted down here in this enchanted castle for each other. We were obliged to come together here, even if long ago we had not been two hearts united somewhere else. The colonel, as a matter of fact, wedded us from the first. The only pity is that your marriage contract with him did not make provision for the circumstances. But there it is, and we have no choice but to resort to some secret arrangement between ourselves. Don't you see, dearest child, we are both tacking the same way on life's ocean. The risks you and I have to run are one and the same. So buck up, and let's go it! We are poor vagabonds, anyhow."
"Thank you, I am not a vagabond!" Lilly flared up. "I have my pride and my honour to maintain, and even if I have sinned, I know how to die for my sins."