"You silly fellow! you crazy fool! Do you suppose that I--the Count of Reichenberg--can be sent home like a blockhead, with such an answer as that? Aye, you may glare at me with your wolfish eyes--they cannot pierce my mailed breast. Fetch the boy, on the spot--or I will search the building for him through and through."
"He must come, there is no help for it;" the Abbot whispered to Correntian. "You are not afraid that we cannot rely upon him now, when this severe punishment--"
Correntian smiled. "Be easy," he said; then turning to Reichenberg, "I will bring him to you, that he may tell you himself--then you will believe me."
The Count paced the room with long strides; was it near at last--this consummation--did he at last see the term set to half a life-time of remorse and goading despair? Oh! when he held his son in his arms, in those strong arms, nothing should tear him from them--he would make up for everything.
Minute after minute passed, louder and faster beat the father's heart--more and more shrank the terrified souls of the monks--"How will it end?"
Now--now close to the door--the footsteps of two men--but slow, much too slow for the father's eager impatience. Reichenberg rushed to the door to meet him--the monks turned away not to witness the terrible scene. There stood the longed for son, pale and wasted, and his face covered with a blood-stained bandage. The father tottered back--his eyes fixed, petrified with horror at this vision of suffering. But no! this is not he, he is deceived; this is not Donatus. "Donatus!" he cried, with a choked utterance, "Donatus, my son--where is he?"
"I am here," answered the youth. The father, to convince himself, snatched away the bandage from his face--his son was before him--eyeless!
A cry broke from the strong man that made the monks' blood run cold; "Blind--blinded--my son--blinded. Who has done it?"
"I myself," said the young monk, in a firm voice.
"You--yourself? and why?" groaned the miserable father.