Marie had been little accustomed to see her reserved cousin preferred before her, which this apparent victory seemed to indicate. Her vanity was piqued, she felt herself estranged from Bertha, and conceived herself bound to exert her talents and winning arts to re-establish herself in her lost rights. She therefore, in her usual merry mood, carried on the conversation about the coming war, which she contrived to lengthen out till the end of the dance. "Well," said she, "and how many campaigns have you gone through, Albert von Sturmfeder?" "This will be my first," he answered, abruptly, for he was annoyed that she kept up the conversation, as he wished so much to speak to Bertha again. "Your first!" said Marie, in astonishment. "You surely want to deceive me, for I perceive a large scar on your forehead." "I got that at the university," he replied. "How? are you a scholar?" asked Marie, her curiosity still more excited. "Well, then, I suppose you have visited distant countries, Padua or Bologna, or perhaps even the heretics in Wittenberg?" "Not so far as you think," said he, as he turned to Bertha: "I have never been further than Tübingen." "In Tübingen?" cried Marie, surprised. This single word, like lightning, unravelled in a moment every thing in her mind which before had been obscure. A glance at Bertha, who stood before her with downcast eyes, her cheeks suffused with the blush of confusion, convinced her that, on that word, hung the key to a long list of inferences which had occupied her thoughts. It was now quite clear why the courteous knight saluted them; the cause of Bertha's tears could be no other, than that of finding Albert had joined the opposite party; the earnest conversation between them, and Sturmfeder's reserve to herself, were satisfactorily explained to her mind. There was no question of their having long known each other. Indignation was the first feeling that ruffled Marie's breast. She blushed for herself, when she felt she had endeavoured to attract the attention of a young man whose heart was fully occupied by another object. Ill humour, on account of Bertha's secrecy, clouded her features. She sought excuse for her own conduct, and found it only in the duplicity of her cousin. If she had but acknowledged, she said to herself, the feeling which existed between her and the young knight, she never would have shown the interest she took in him; he would have been perfectly indifferent to her; she never would have experienced this painful confusion.