ur bright eyes."

"How could you know that?" asked Els in confusion.

"Because, in love and hate, as well as in reckoning, two and three follow
one," laughed the countess. "As for your Wolff, in particular, I will
gladly believe, with you, that he can succeed in clearing himself before
the judges. But with regard to old Eysvogel, who looks as though, if he
met our dear Lord Himself, he would think first which of the two was the
richer, your future brother-in-law Siebenburg, that disagreeable
'Mustache,' and his poor wife, who sits at home grieving over her
dissolute husband--what gratitude you can expect from such kindred--"

"None," replied Els sadly. Yet a mischievous smile hovered around her
lips as, bending over the invalid, she added in a whisper: "But the good
I expect from all the evil is, that we and the Eysvogels will be
separated as if by wall and moat. They will never cross them, but Wolff
would find the way back to me, though we were parted by an ocean, and
mountains towering to the sky divided----"

"This confidence, indeed, maintains the courage," said the countess, and
with a faint sigh she added: "Whatever evil may befall you, many might
envy you."

"Then love has conquered you also?" Els began; but Cordula answered
evasively:

"Let that pass, dear Jungfrau. Perhaps love treats me as a mother deals
with a froward child, because I asked too much of her. My life has become
an endless battue. Much game of all kinds is thus driven out to be shot,
but the sportsman finds true pleasure only in tracking the single
heathcock, the solitary chamois. Yet, no," and in her eagerness she flung
her bandaged hand so high into the air that she groaned with pain and was
forced to keep silence. When able to speak once more, still tortured by
severe suffering, she exclaimed angrily: "No, I want neither driving nor
stalking. What do I care for the prey? I am a woman, too. I would fain be
the poor persecuted game, which the hunter pursues at the risk of
breaking his bones and neck. It must be delightful; one would willingly
bear the pain of a wound for its sake. I don't mean these pitiful burns,
but a deep and deadly one."

"You ought to have spared yourself these," said Els in a tone of
affectionate warning. "Consider what you are to your father, and how your
suffering pains him! To risk a precious human life for the sake of a
stupid brute--"

"They call it a sin, I know," Cordula burst forth. "And yet I would
comm