There had been no time for that; it had been a nasty bit of work getting to the stranded vessel, and still worse to take off the poor men through the surf; but it had been successful; they were all saved, the whole eight of them. They had to be put ashore at Grünwald then, which was another difficult job, and had kept them a long time; but it could not be helped, the poor fellows who had been clinging to the rigging all night were in such a deplorable condition, but they would be all right now. Intoxicated with the bliss of that flower of happiness which they had plucked from the edge of the abyss, they remarked now for the first time that Aunt Valerie had left them. Elsa, who had no secrets from her Reinhold, explained to him in a few words the poor thing's position, and that they had not now a moment to lose in starting on their disagreeable journey homewards. "Not a moment!" cried Reinhold, rising; "I will give the necessary orders at once." "They have already been given," said Valerie, who had heard the last words as she entered; "the carriage is at the door." The noise of the wheels had been inaudible in the deep sand to the happy lovers, as had been also the approach of the rider, whom Aunt Valerie had seen from the window, and to receive whom she had left the room. He was there; he ordered her to come! She knew it before she opened the letter which François handed to her. She had read the letter--in the little room to the left, standing at the open window, while François stood outside--and then the enclosure; and as she read the letter she had laughed aloud, and torn the paper into fragments, and thrown the fragments scornfully from the window, out into the storm which in a moment whirled them away. "Madame laughs," said François, speaking French as he always did when he wished to be impressive; "but I can assure madame that it is no laughing matter, and that if madame is not back at the castle before six o'clock, something terrible will happen." "I will come." François bowed, swung himself into the saddle again, and--to the breathless astonishment of the village children who had been attracted by the unusual spectacle of a horseman--set spurs to his horse, and, with his head bowed almost to the saddle, dashed off, while Valerie begged Frau Rickmann to send for the carriage which had been put into the head pilot's barn up in the village, and then with a heavy heart went to separate the happy pair. But if she made up her mind to a last meeting with her dreaded, hated tyrant, it was only for the sake of those she loved, and for whom in the threatening catastrophe she would save whatever might still be possible to save! It would not be much--she knew his rapacity--but enough perhaps to secure her Elsa's future, to free poor Ottomar from his difficulties. And she smiled as she thought that even Elsa could believe she was thinking of herself in this matter, of her future!--Good God!