Hertha's blush deepened, and hurriedly, as if eager at all hazards to change the subject, she said, "You really think all danger over?" "Yes; the insult as well as the challenge has been retracted in due form. The quarrel is at an end." "But not the enmity! I could only give you a faint idea last evening of what really passed between them. You do not know what words Raoul made use of,--not concerning the captain himself, but concerning his parents." "Ah, it was that, then!" muttered Steinrück. "Do you know anything about them?" the Countess asked, hastily. "I only know that there is not the slightest stain upon Rodenberg's honour, and that suffices me. How did he receive Raoul's words?" "Like a wounded lion. He was absolutely terrible: if Raoul had said another word I believe he would have struck him down." The general's attention was roused by the girl's passionate tone, and he gazed at her with a dawning suspicion in his look, while Hertha, all unconscious of his glance, went on, with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks: "Rodenberg was indignant to the last degree; he silenced Raoul with a look and a tone such as I have never seen and heard before, save once; in you, Uncle Michael, that time at Berkheim, when they brought before you the poacher who had shot our forester; it brought you directly to my mind as you were then." Steinrück made no reply to these last remarks; he still gazed fixedly at the young Countess, as if trying to decipher something in her features. "Perhaps Raoul's words were not unfounded," he said at last, very slowly. "Who can tell what he may know of Rodenberg's origin?" "He was all the more inexcusable for touching upon the matter," Hertha persisted, with a vehemence of which she herself was unconscious. "You yourself say that the captain's honour is stainless, and Raoul surely knows it as well as you; and therefore he attacked the parents. It was cowardly and malicious; it was base and----" "Hertha, you are speaking of your betrothed!" the general sternly interrupted her. Hertha paused, and her colour faded. Steinrück laid his hand heavily upon her own, and said in an undertone, but with severity, "For whose life did you tremble? For whom were you anxious?" She was silent, although she knew but too well,--the sleepless hours of the past night had revealed the truth to her,--but no sound escaped her lips. The Count gazed steadily at her. "Hertha, I demand an answer. Will you not, or can you not, give me one? Surely the betrothed of Count Steinrück knows what she owes to him and to herself." "Yes, she knows well," said Hertha, gravely and firmly. "Have no fear; I shall redeem my word." "I look for no less from you!" He clasped her hand tightly in his own for a moment, then dropped it and arose. "What time is appointed for your departure?" he asked, after a pause. "The beginning of next week."