"Mine also, perhaps, but till then? Remember that the father's blessing builds the children's house; but that we have no power to loose the bonds of two hearts that have found one another without our help--perhaps against our wish and will. Consider that the responsibility of the curse which must ensue from these unhallowed bonds henceforth rests on your head." "I have considered it." "And I have done my duty." The General bowed in his usual stately and dignified manner, and moved, courteously escorted by Uncle Ernst, towards the door. There he stood still: "One thing more; the failure of consent on the part of the fathers hinders a marriage at least in this case, in which a portionless officer is the suitor. None the less will my son consider himself bound till your daughter herself releases him. I take it for granted that your daughter will not do this, unless her father exercises compulsion over her." "I take it for granted also that General von Werben has exercised no compulsion on his son, in obtaining authority from the latter to make the proposal with which he has just honoured me." The stern eyes flashed, he had his opponent in his grasp; the crisis must come now. A look of pain passed over the General's face. "The supposition would not be quite correct; the sense of duty was stronger in the father than in the son." He was gone. The wild fire in the eyes of him who remained behind had changed to a joyful gleam. "I knew it! The brood are always the same, however they may boast of their virtue. Down! down! down with them!" He stood there, bending forward, moving his powerful arms, as if his enemy in reality lay at his feet. Then he drew himself up. His arms sank, the gleam disappeared from his eyes. The victory was not his yet; another struggle was before him, the hardest, the struggle with his own flesh and blood. CHAPTER XIII. For Ferdinanda the night had had no terrors, the morning no darkness. In her soul was brightest day, for the first time for many months; for the first time, indeed, she thought, since she knew what a passionate, proud, ambitious heart beat in her bosom. They had often told her--in former days, her mother; later, her aunt, her friends, all--that it would one day bring her unhappiness, and that pride went before a fall; and she had always answered scornfully, "Then I will be unhappy; I will fall, if happiness is only to be had at the mean price of humility, which always grovels in the dust before fate, and sings hymns of praise if the wheels of envious fate have only grazed and not crushed her. I am not like Justus or Cilli."