The unsuspecting pair came nearer. The lady, evidently exhausted, was really almost carried by her companion. It was too dark for the prince to see distinctly, but her head seemed to be resting on the peasant"s breast. An interesting pair of lovers! But they drew nearer, the prince could not believe his eyes, it _was_ his daughter, leaning on a peasant"s arm. There was an involuntary cry of horror from both as Countess Wildenau stood face to face with her haughty father. The blood fairly congealed in Madeleine"s veins, her cheeks blanched till their pallor glimmered through the gloom! Yet the habit of maintaining social forms did not desert her: "Oh, what a surprise! Good evening, Papa!"

Her soul had retreated to the inmost depths of her being, and she was but a puppet moving and speaking by rule.

Freyer raised his hat in a farewell salute.

"Are you going?" she said with an expressionless glance. "I suppose I cannot ask you to rest a little while? Farewell, Herr Freyer, and many thanks."

How strange! Did it not seem as if a c.o.c.k crowed?

Freyer bowed silently and walked on, "Adieu!" said the prince without lifting his hat. For an instant he considered whether he could possibly offer his aim to a lady in _such_ attire, but at last resolved to do so--she was his daughter, and this was not exactly the right moment to quarrel with her. So, struggling with his indignation and disgust, he escorted her, holding his arm very far out as though he might be soiled by the contact, through the house into her room. The Gross sisters, with trembling hands, brought in lights and hastily vanished. Madeleine von Wildenau stood in the centre of the room, like an automaton whose machinery had run down. The prince took a candle from the table and threw its light full upon her face. "Pardon me, I must ascertain whether this lady, who looks as if she had just jumped out of a gipsy-cart, is really my daughter? Yes, it is actually she!" he exclaimed in a tone intended to be humorous, but which was merely brutal. "So I find the Countess Wildenau in _this_ guise--ragged, worn, with neither hat nor gloves, wandering about with peasants! It is incredible!"

The countess sank into a chair without a word. Her father"s large, stern features were flushed with a wrath which he could scarcely control.

"Have you gone out of fashion so completely that you must seek your society in such circles as these, _ma fille_? Could no cavalier be found to escort the Countess Wildenau that she must strike up an intimacy with one of the comedians in the Pa.s.sion Play?"

"An intimacy? Papa, this is an insult!" exclaimed the countess angrily, for though it was true, she felt that on his lips and in _his_ meaning it was such! Again a c.o.c.k crowed at this unwonted hour.

"Well _ma chere_, when a lady is caught half embraced by such a man, the inference is inevitable."

"Dear me, I was so exhausted that I could scarcely stand," replied the countess, softly, as if the c.o.c.ks might hear: "We were caught by the storm and the man was obliged to support me. I should think, however, that the Countess Wildenau"s position was too high for such suspicions."

"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 "G.o.d in man?" Reveal it to this frivolous, prosaic man from whose mockery, even in her childhood, she had carefully concealed every n.o.bler 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 c.o.c.ks crow to-night. Did you hear nothing?" asked the countess.

"Not the slightest sound! Have you hallucinations?" asked the prince: "The c.o.c.ks 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 G.o.d 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 chere_, I believe it would be better for you to marry."

"Papa!" exclaimed the countess indignantly.

The prince laughed: "No offence, when women like you begin to be sentimental--it is time for them to marry! You were widowed too young--it was a misfortune for you."

"A misfortune? May G.o.d forgive you the sneer and me the words--it was a misfortune that Wildenau lived so long--nay more: that I ever became his wife, and you, Papa, ought never to remind me of it."

"Why not?"

"Because I might forget that you _are_ my father--as _you_ forget it when you sold me to that greybeard?"

"Sold? What an expression, _chere enfant_! Is this the result of your study of peasant life here? I congratulate you on the enlargement of your vocabulary. This is the grat.i.tude of a daughter for whom the most brilliant match in the whole circle of aristocratic families was selected."

"And her soul sold in exchange," the countess interrupted; "for that my moral nature was not utterly destroyed is no credit of yours."

The prince smiled with an air of calm superiority: "Capital! Moral nature destroyed! When a girl is wedded to one of the oldest members of the German n.o.bility and made the possession of a yearly income of half a million! That is what she calls moral destruction and an outrageous deed, of which the inhuman father must not remind his daughter without forfeiting his _paternal rights_. It is positively delicious!" He laughed and drew out his cigar case: "You see, _ma fille_--I understand a jest. Will you be annoyed if I smoke a Havana in this rural bed-room?"

"As you please!" replied the countess, who had now regained her former cold composure, holding the candle to him. The prince scanned her features with the searching gaze of a connoisseur as she thus stood before him illumined by the ruddy glow. "You have lost a little of your freshness, my child, but you are still beautiful--still charming. I admit that Wildenau was rather too old for a poetic nature like yours--but there is still time to compensate for it. When were you born? A father ought not to ask his daughter"s age--but the Almanach de Gotha tells the story. You must be now--stop! You were not quite seventeen when you married Wildenau--you were married nine years--you have been a widow two--that makes you twenty-eight. There is still time, but--not much to lose! I am saying this to you in a mother"s place, my child"--he added, with a repulsive affectation of tenderness.

His daughter made no reply.

"It is true, you will lose your income if you give up the name of Wildenau--as the will reads "exchange it for another." This somewhat restricts your choice, for you can resign this colossal dower only in favor of a match which can partially supply your loss."

The countess turned deadly pale. "That is the curse Wildenau hurled upon me from his grave. It was not enough that I was miserable during his life, no--I must not be happy even after his death."

"Why--who has told you so? You have your choice among any of the handsome and wealthy men who can offer you an equivalent for all that you resign. Prince von Metten-Barnheim, for instance! He is a visionary, it is true--"

"Prosaic Prince Emil a visionary!" said the countess, laughing bitterly.

"Well, I think that a man who surrounds himself so much with plebeian society, scholars and authors, might properly be termed a visionary!

When his father dies, the luckless country will be ruled by loud-voiced professors. What does that matter! He"ll suit you all the better, as you are half a scholar yourself. True, it might be said that the Barnheim family is of inferior rank to ours--the Prankenbergs are an older race and from the days of Charlemagne have not made a single _mesalliance_, while the Barnheim genealogical tree shows several gaps--which explains their liberal tendencies. Such things always betray themselves. Yet on the other hand, they are reigning dukes, and we a decaying race--so it is tolerably equal. You are interested in him--so decide at last and marry him, then you will be a happy woman and the curse of the will can have no power."

"Indeed?" cried the countess, trembling with excitement. "But suppose that I loved another, a poor man, whom I could not wed unless I possessed some property of my own, however small, and the will made me a _beggar_ the moment I gave him my hand--what then? Should I not have a right to hate the jealous despot and the man who sacrificed me to his selfish interests--even though he was my own father?" A glance of the keenest reproach fell upon the prince.

He was startled by this outburst of pa.s.sion, hitherto unknown in his experience of this apathetic woman. He could make no use of her present mood. Biting off a leaf from his cigar, he blew it into the air with a graceful movement of the lips. Some change had taken place in Madeleine, that was evident! If, after all, she should commit some folly--make a love-match? But with whom? Again the scene he had witnessed that evening rose before his mind! She had let her head rest on the shoulder of a common peasant--that could not be denied, he had _seen_ it with his own eyes. Did such a delusion really exist? A woman of her temperament was incomprehensible--she would be quite capable, in a moment of enthusiasm, of throwing her whole splendid fortune away and giving society an unparalleled spectacle. Who could tell what ideas such a "lunatic" might take into her head. And yet--who could prevent it? No one had any power over her--least of all he himself, who could not even threaten her with disinheritance, since it was long since he had possessed anything he could call his own. An old gambler, perpetually struggling with debt, who had come that day, that very day, to--nay, he was reluctant to confess it to himself. And he had already irritated his daughter, his last refuge, the only support which still kept his head above water, more than was wise or prudent--he dared not venture farther.

He had the suppressed brutality of all violent natures which cannot have their own way, are not masters of their pa.s.sions and their circ.u.mstances, and hence are constantly placed in the false position of being compelled to ask the aid of others!

After having busied himself a sufficiently long time with his cigar, he said in a soothing and--for so imperious a man--repulsively submissive tone: "Well, _ma fille_, there is an expedient for that case also. If you loved a man who was too poor to maintain an establishment suitable for you--you might do the one thing without forfeiting the other--Wildenau"s will mentions only _a change of name_: you might marry secretly--keep his name and with it his property."

"Papa!" exclaimed the countess--a burning blush crimsoned her cheeks, but her eyes were fixed with intense anxiety upon the speaker--"I could not expect that from a husband whom I esteemed and loved."

"Why not? If he could offer you no maintenance, he could not ask you to sacrifice yours! Surely it would be enough if you gave him yourself."

"If he would accept me under such conditions,"" she answered, thoughtfully.

"Aha--we are on the right track!" the prince reflected, watching her keenly. "As soon as he perceived that there was no other possibility of making you his--certainly! A woman like you can persuade a man to do anything. I don"t wish to be indiscreet, but, _ma fille_--I fear that you have made a choice of which you cannot help being ashamed. Could you think of forming such an alliance except in secret. If, that is, you _must_ wed? What would the world say when rumor whispered: "Countess Wildenau has sunk so low that she"--I dare not utter the word, from the fear of offending you."

The countess sat with downcast eyes.

The world--! It suddenly stood before her with its mocking faces.

Should she expose her sacred love to its derision? Should she force the n.o.ble simple-mannered man who was the salvation of her soul to play a ridiculous part in the eyes of society, as the husband of the Countess Wildenau? Her father was right--though from very different motives.

Could this secret which was too beautiful, too holy, to be confided to her own father--endure the contact of the world?

"But how could a secret marriage be arranged?" she asked, with feigned indifference.

Prince von Prankenberg was startled by the earnestness of the question.

Had matters gone so far? Caution was requisite here. Energetic opposition could only produce the opposite result, perhaps a public scandal. He reflected a moment while apparently toiling to puff rings of smoke into the air, as if the world contained no task more important. His daughter"s eyes rested on him with suspicious keenness.

At last he seemed to have formed his plan.