"I should not assert that her faith has not been shaken," Alexandra replied, "but she was still under the sway of that intuitive feeling which guides us women wellnigh always aright, and which in her case betrayed itself in a hundred turns, every one of which had for its object your future welfare and happiness. And then, my friend, you did at last the very opposite of what you should have done to calm Erna, and to brighten her future. You may thank Heaven that Erna does not divine the real motive which influenced you; that between the two duels she sees a sort of mechanical connection of time and place, if I may say so, and not the real one. But for all that, if you had fallen in this duel, Erna would never have consented to an alliance with Kurt, and she would never in her heart have forgiven him for not being the first on the ground. Whether it was within the limits of possibility to have forestalled you, the woman's heart does not stop to inquire. The loved one must be not only the best and noblest and bravest of men, but the cleverest too; how he sets about it is his own concern! Dozens of duels have been fought in my immediate neighbourhood, and, I am sorry to say, I have been the direct cause more than once, so I had no difficulty in understanding the whole business. That old chatterbox, the ranger, was relating the circumstances to us at breakfast; I then sent for your servant, and, examining him, found out that you had held a long conversation with Kurt, which had been preceded by negotiations between Kurt and Herr von Busche; and last of all came that crackbrained person Fräulein von Aschhof, and confessed her horribly indiscreet statement to the Baron, and your remark, my friend, that you would try to settle the matter. I saw it all as clearly as though it had been acted before me. Then I knew, too, what I should have to do. Again I sought Erna, and told her that your life and Kurt's honour were both at stake; of course I took care to represent matters in such a way that the idea could not well occur to her of your having wished to sacrifice yourself directly for Kurt. She spurned with contumely the idea that Kurt had only pretended not to hear the Baron's insulting remarks; no need for me to tell her, she said, that Kurt must be instantly informed of it. I am convinced that she felt that her fate was about to be decided, that now once more she became fully and thoroughly conscious of her love for Kurt. The great, strong, energetic nature of the glorious girl shone forth in mighty radiance. I could have knelt at her feet and worshipped her! I may say that I forgot completely my own self, forgot that he for whom this passion was flaming heaven-high had been the object of my own mad love. I even concealed what I knew--that I had distinctly recognised the Baron, when I saw him at the card-table last night, as the man who also, at a card-table, had cheated my mother out of a hundred thousand