And she, she knew it too, and therefore she also was silent.  Only with her eyes she spoke to him, and the tears which flowed from her eyes gave eloquent reply to his.  Thus they looked at one another, at once full of bliss and pain.  The child, which until now had sat quiet upon its mother’s arm, silent and as if in deep thought, suddenly began to move.  Its large eyes were fixed upon the man who lay there on his knees, and, whether it were the result of an involuntary movement or the instinct of love, it spread out its arms and smiled.

“My child, my darling child!” screamed Gabriel Nietzel, springing from his knees and rushing forward with outstretched arms.  But the frame with its living picture hung too high—­his arms could not reach it, his lips could not touch that smiling, childish mouth to press upon it a father’s kiss of blessing and seal of love.  “My child!” he cried again, and now, since love had once opened his lips, silence could no longer be maintained.

“Rebecca, my beloved,” he cried.

“Gabriel, my beloved,” sounded down.

“You have broken your word!” cried Count Schwarzenberg angrily, and he vehemently drew the string, so that the green curtain hastily rustled together.  But it was in vain.  A rounded, powerful female arm thrust it back, and now it was no more a Madonna with her Child who looked forth from the green curtain, but a glowing creature, a wife flaming with indignation and love, with defiance and grief.

“Nobody shall hinder me from looking at you, from speaking to you!” she cried.  “I will see you, Gabriel.  I will tell you, that I love you and am true to you.  I will tell you that I would rather go barefoot through the world, begging with you and the child, than to live longer in this count’s grand castle, amid splendor, without you.  Gabriel, rescue me from this place; do all that they require of you, only take me away from here.”

“Rebecca, I will rescue you, for I can not live without you—­without you the world is a desert to me.  You are my sun and the light of my life.”

“Gabriel, release me, while yet there is time.  They will make a Christian of me, and I shall renounce my faith and my salvation, in order to be with you again, but afterward I shall die of repentance.”

“Rebecca, I shall release you, and I too am ready to renounce my salvation in order to be with you.  But I will not die of repentance, for I shall have you again, and when I look upon you and the child I shall feel no repentance.”

“Gabriel, release me, give back to me my happiness, my home, my family.  For you are all that to me, and without you the world is a desert.”

“Without you the world is a wilderness, Rebecca.  Swear to me that you love me!”

“I swear to you, by the God of my fathers, that I love you!”

“And would you love me if the whole world despised me?”

“What matters the world to me?  Would I still love you?  I would love you more fervently yet if all the world despised you, for then you would be like me.  They despise me too, and turn away contemptuously from me, and yet I have done nothing bad.”