She held out her hand, but he did not take it.
"Do not bear malice against me. I--I am too deeply wounded. I do not know what I am doing."
Herbert was silent. He shivered, as if with cold. His look--the expression of his eyes--alarmed the countess more and more.
"Now you will revenge yourself by not telling me how I can annihilate the Hartwich?"
"Why should I not tell you?" stammered Herbert, with blue lips. "I keep my promises." He fixed his eyes upon the countess. "Make the Hartwich your friend, and you will make her an object of aversion in Möllner's eyes."
The countess started; her terrible glance encountered Herbert's look of hate. They stood now opposed to each other,--enemies to the death,--the effeminate man and the masculine woman. She had offended him mortally, but Herbert's last thrust had gone home; and softly, lightly as an incorporeal shade, he passed from the room.
When the countess was alone, she fell upon her knees, as though utterly crushed.
"Thus outraged Virtue revenges herself! Artful hypocrite that she is! When I left her, she gave me no warning,--I sinned unpunished,--and now, when I would return to her repentant, she thrusts me from her with a remorseless 'Too late!' Too late!--my ships are burned behind me, and there is nothing left for me but to advance, or to repent,--Repent?" She writhed in despair. "No! O Heaven, take pity on me,--I am still too young and too fair for that!"