He took out his handkerchief and pressed it upon the tiny wounds as he glanced impatiently towards the little house, where the priest yet lingered. His visit there seemed to be endless, and the rack here must be tasted to the last. The young girl perhaps suspected his agony, but she did not feel called upon to abbreviate it. The spoiled, petted beauty felt it as an offence that this man should dare to defy a power which she had so often exerted over others. He had recognized its might, as she had long since perceived; he had not approached her with impunity, and yet here he stood with that impregnable reserve, that haughty brow, which would not bow. He must be punished! "I should like to ask you a question, Lieutenant Rodenberg," she began again. "My mother reproached you awhile ago--I heard her--with never having accepted her invitation." "I have already apologized to Madame the Countess. We have been quite absorbed lately by a family matter, which was indeed the cause of the Professor's departure. When I return from Saint Michael----" "You will find some other excuse," Hertha interposed. "You do not _wish_ to come." Michael's face flushed, but he avoided meeting the eyes that sought his; he looked across to the Eagle ridge. "You take that for granted with a strange degree of certainty, Countess Steinrück, and, nevertheless, you wish me to come." "I only wish for an explanation of what keeps you away from us. You have saved my own and my mother's life, and you reject our gratitude in a way that is inexplicable to us if we refuse to consider it insulting. With a stranger we should never waste a word upon the subject. To one to whom we owe so much we may well put the question, 'What is there between us? What have we done to you?'" The words had a gentle, half-veiled sound, but several seconds passed before the reply came. Michael's gaze was still riveted upon the rocky summits; he knew that storm-clouds were gathering around them, but he saw only the golden mist, the gleaming magic veil; he heard the roll of the thunder that sounded nearer and nearer, but he heeded only that low, reproachful 'What have we done to you?' "You shame me," he said at last, with a final attempt to preserve a tone of cool courtesy. "The slight service that I did you required no gratitude; you have always overrated it." "Again you evade me; you are a master of the art," the young girl exclaimed, with an expression of extreme impatience. "But I will not release you from replying; I must know the truth at last." "And what if I should not comply with your command, for such it certainly seems to be?" "It rests with you, of course, to refuse to do so; but it was no command, only a request, which I now repeat: 'What have we done to you? Why do you avoid us?'"