The dark-looking man struck his hand against his forehead with a loud and scornful laugh.
"It serves me right! I cast out my own flesh and blood, and in exchange I get a bastard; now I am searching again for my own outcast child, and again, oh! mocking Fate, you fling the bastard scornfully into my lap. Ay, Thou art just, Thou severe God, and Thy ways are past finding out."
The woman and the girl looked in alarm at the powerful man; but after a pause he spoke more calmly,
"I am the Count of Reichenberg," he said, "whose guilty wife gave this child into your charge."
"Great God!" cried the nurse, crossing herself. "Do not harm her, my lord, she could not help it."
The count's gaze gradually softened as he looked at the girl's childish beauty.
"No, you cannot help it. You have your mother's eyes, but they are not false like hers. I forgave her on her death-bed, and how could I be cruel to you? By Heaven, the child bewitches me as her mother did before her. Be off with your sick nurse there to Reichenberg; you shall no longer wander about homeless. Give this ring to the warder as a token that I have sent you, and that he is to take you in to the castle, and take care of you. I shall come after you later, but first I have important work to do in this neighbourhood."
"Thank you, my lord, and may God reward you," cried the nurse, who was almost bewildered by such unexpected good fortune; "I cannot get so far, for I feel my end is near, but the child--I will send her to you at once."
But the little girl shook her head, and threw the ring from her.
"No," she said, "I will not go with the strange man, I will stay with you, mother."