He had spoken with ever rising agitation, and Antonie had ceased weeping, anger had given place to compassion, and, as he concluded, every reproach had perished in the fear of losing the beloved one. Countess Arnau was not the woman to recognise the claims of an outsider, where she alone would possess all. "Renounce?" asked she softly, with dropped eyelids. But a world of encouragement lay in the tone, "and why?" "You ask me? May I dare, then, to woo you? I am poor, you know it. I have nothing but my art. You stand so high, your position in life is so brilliant--" His glance, resting with burning passion upon the beautiful woman's face, contradicted these words of renunciation. She looked up and smiled. "And I am free, Eugen, quite free! You had forgotten that! "Antonie!" He rushed passionately to her feet. "Give me the hope, give me the certainty, that I may one day win you, and I will break my chain, cost what it may. Tell me, that you will be mine, in spite of your name, in spite of your family, and I will burst all bonds asunder, and win happiness, if need be, by force!" Antonie bent down to her kneeling lover, love plainly to be seen in her eyes--she was, indeed, wonderfully beautiful at this moment. "I fear no bonds. I know by experience how empty splendour and riches can make life, in a marriage where there is no love. Free yourself, cultivate your genius, and then, when your first work has won you an artist's fame,--then come and fetch the prize of victory!" CHAPTER III. The freshness of the morning was over, and the heat of a midday sun in June brooded over the village, which lay about half-an-hour's distance from the Schloss, where Count Arnau and Eugen Reinert were at present guests. The stage coach, which had passed through an hour ago, had put down travellers, an old gentleman and a young girl. The narrow, close, room of the inn seemed oppressive to both alike; the old man sat in the little garden behind the house, whilst his companion had sauntered to the front, and was now thoughtfully contemplating the scene around her. The village lay almost as still as death, the people were nearly all at work in the fields. No one was to be seen, save a group of children, playing in the broad village street, untroubled by the hot sunshine.