"Well, well, I heard in Munich certain rumors about your long stay here which accorded admirably with the romantic personage who has just left you. My imaginative daughter always had strange fancies, and as you seem able to endure the peasant odor--I am somewhat more sensitive to it ..."
"Papa!" cried the countess, frantic with shame. "I beg you not to speak in that way of people whom I esteem."
"Aha!" said the prince with a short laugh, "Your anger speaks plainly enough. I will make no further allusion to these delicate relations."
The countess remained silent a moment, struggling with her emotions. Should she confess all--should she betray the mystery of the "God in man?" Reveal it to this frivolous, prosaic man from whose mockery, even in her childhood, she had carefully concealed every nobler feeling--disclose to him her most sacred possession, the miracle of her life? No, it would be desecration. "I have no delicate relations! I scarcely know these people--I am interested in this Freyer as the representative of the Christ--he is nothing more to me."
The cede crowed for the third time.
"What was that? I am continually hearing cocks crow to-night. Did you hear nothing?" asked the countess.
"Not the slightest sound! Have you hallucinations?" asked the prince: "The cocks are all asleep at this hour."
She knew it--the sound was but the echo of her own conscience. She thought of the words Freyer had uttered that day upon the mountain, and his large eyes gazed mournfully, yet forgivingly at her. Now she knew why Peter was pardoned! He would not suffer the God in whom he could not force men to believe to be profaned--so he concealed Him in his heart. He knew that the bond which united him to Christ and the work which he was appointed to do for Him was greater than the cheap martyrdom of an acknowledgment of Him to the dull ears of a handful of men and maid-servants! It was no lie when he said: "I know not the man"--for he really did not know the Christ whom they meant. He was denying--not Christ, but the criminal, whom they believed Him to be. It was the same with the countess. She was not ashamed of the man she loved, only of the person her father saw in him and, as she could not explain to the prince what Joseph Freyer was to her, she denied him entirely. But even as Peter mourned as a heavy sin the brief moment in which he faithlessly separated from his beloved Master, she, too, now felt a keen pang, as though a wound was bleeding in her heart, and tears streamed from her eyes.
"You are nervous, ma fille! It isn't worth while. Tears for the sake of that worthy villager?" said the prince, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "Listen, ma chère, I believe it would be better for you to marry."
"Papa!" exclaimed the countess indignantly.