Von Sungen here stepped into the barn, but the look on Catherine's face promptly checked him from going any nearer to her. "My orders are," he said, "to bring back Monsieur Wetheral and Mademoiselle de St. Valier, both alive, if possible; or, if need be, the gentleman dead, but the lady alive in any event. Nothing was said of Captain von Romberg." "Nevertheless," put in that gentleman, "Captain von Romberg joins his fate with theirs, until all are safe or dead." "You are sure to fail of carrying out your orders, Baron," said Catherine. "I will never go back to Cassel alive." "Not even if I take on myself the risk of letting Monsieur Wetheral go free? In that case you will save his life, as well as that of Captain von Romberg, who seems determined to die with his friend. Moreover, you will be saving your own life as well," said Von Sungen. "A man of honor like the Baron von Sungen," said Dick, with the gentlest shade of scorn and reproach, "must have a very strong motive for proposing that two other men of honor should accept their lives on the terms given." "It is true," replied Von Sungen, "I have a large stake in this night's business,--as great a one as yours, monsieur." "How can that be possible?" said Dick. "I will prove it to you," said Von Sungen. "I infer that you love this lady, and that your greatest wish is to preserve her from the purposes of the Landgrave. Well, I love a lady, and my dearest desire is to save her from a marriage that would be for her a degradation as great as any woman could feel in becoming the Landgrave's favorite. Don't tell me, monsieur, that marriage would lessen the horror of a virtuous woman's union with old Rothenstein. Well, the Baroness's hand is at the disposal of the Landgrave. He has hesitated whether to favor Rothenstein or yield to my entreaties. To-night, when his highness sent me to seek you, he said, 'Bring Mademoiselle de St. Valier back alive, and you shall marry the Baroness von Luderwaldt when you please. Come back without mademoiselle alive, and Rothenstein shall marry your Baroness to-morrow.'" "My poor Von Sungen!" said Dick, his ready imagination putting himself for the moment in the place of the other, with whom his own case enabled him perfectly to sympathize. "Well, monsieur," said Von Sungen, "it seems that both of us must lose our sweethearts and our lives, for if mademoiselle will not save your life, and enable me to save my sweetheart, I will kill myself. I would no more live to see her wedded to that vile old wretch, Rothenstein, than you would live to see your beloved possessed by the Landgrave. But, mademoiselle, will you not save your lover's life in spite of himself?" "I will not go back to the Landgrave," she said, with calm resolution. Her agreement for the saving of her brother had been made on the belief that her lover was dead, and before she had experienced the horrible emotions that came with a later conception of what that agreement would require of her.