“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 commit the same tomorrow at the risk of again—­Oh, you cautious city people, you maidens with snow-white hands!  What do you know of a girl like me?  You cannot even imagine what my child life was; and yet it is told in a single word—­motherless!  I was never permitted to see her, to hear her dear, warning voice.  She paid with her own life for giving me mine.  My father?  How kind he is!  He meant to supply his dead wife’s place by anticipating my every wish.  Had I desired to feast my eyes on the castle in flames, it would,