But no thanks were implied in the tone—only bitterness. He was angry that I should be in the place he dared not come to.
If I had not been raised by one supreme fear above all smaller ones, I should have been afraid of this haggard, eager-looking old man—for he did look very old in his anguish. I could see the rage of jealousy with which he regarded me, and I am not naturally fond of encountering an old wolf who has starved.
But I used my utmost effort to prevail upon him to visit his nephew, and at last succeeded. I piloted him to Sigmund’s room; led him to the boy’s bedside. The sick child’s eyes were closed, but he presently opened them. The uncle was stooping over him, his rugged face all working with emotion, and his voice broken as he murmured:
“Ach, mein Liebling! art thou then so ill?”
With a kind of shuddering cry, the boy pushed him away with both hands, crying:
“Go away! I want my father—my father, my father, I say! Where is he? Why do you not fetch him? You are a bad man, and you hate him.”
Then I was frightened. The count recoiled; his face turned deathly white—livid; his fist clinched. He glared down upon the now unrecognizing young face and stuttered forth something, paused, then said in a low, distinct voice, which shook me from head to foot:
“So! Better he should die. The brood is worthy the nest it sprung from. Where is our blood, that he whines after that hound—that hound?”
With which, and with a fell look around, he departed, leaving Sigmund oblivious of all that had passed, utterly indifferent and unconscious, and me shivering with fear at the outburst I had seen.