Hartmut did not answer, he only threw himself upon his mother’s breast with a wild, passionate sob, which had as much anger and bitterness in it, as pain.

It had now grown quite dark and the night was upon them, a cold, misty, autumn night, without moon or starlight, and over in the meadows, where the vapor was so dense, a light rain had just begun to fall, and through the rain and the mist a blue shimmering light appeared, now faint and dull, now with a clear, bright gleam like a flame.

It disappeared, then started forth again a second and a third time—­the will-o’-the-wisp had begun its unearthly, spectral dance.

“You are crying!” said Zalika holding her son fast in her arms.  “I have long foreseen this day, and if young Eschenhagen had not surprised us the other morning.  I should before this have given you the choice between returning to your father and forming some other plan.”

“What other plan?  What do you mean?” asked Hartmut, perplexed.

Zalika bent over him and although they were alone, her voice sank into a whisper.

“Will you allow this tyranny to go on, will you permit yourself to be separated from your mother and our holy love trodden under foot, without asserting yourself, or protecting our joint right?  If you do permit it, you are no son of mine, and my blood does not flow in your veins.  He sent you to bid me farewell, and you take his word as final.  Do you really come to take leave of me, for long years, in all probability?”

“I must do it,” her son broke out despairingly.  “You know my father.  Against his iron will there is no appeal.”

“If you return to him—­no!  But who will force you to return?”

“Mamma.  Do not tempt me, for the love of heaven!” he cried trying to free himself from the arms which held him so fast, but the passionate voice still whispered in his ear: 

“What alarms you in the thought?  You but go with your mother, who loves you with a boundless love and will live only for you.  You have often complained to me that you hate the service into which you are forced.  Have you forgotten your longing for freedom?  If you go back you have no option, for your father will bind you fast in the chains, and he will but shorten the links, when he sees you are intolerant of them.”

She had no need to tell her son this, for he knew it all better than she could tell him.  Scarcely an hour since, had he not heard the words:  “You shall obey and learn to yield while yet there is time.”

His voice was full of bitterness as he replied.

“In any case, I must go back.  I have given my word to be at Burgsdorf again in two hours.”

“Really?” asked Zalika, sharply and scornfully.  “I thought as much.  I see he treats you like a child, marks out your every step for you and gives you your allotted time, as if you had no judgment or mind of your own; but the time has gone by to treat you thus, you are old enough to assume the prerogatives of a man.  The day has come when you must show that you are a man in action as well as word.  A promise wrung from one is valueless; tear asunder this invisible chain by which you are held, and set yourself free.”