“Then it is clear,” Malcolm said cheerfully, “that we must get your daughter out of the clutches of the emperor and the nuns.”

“That is what I have thought over again and again as I have lain here helpless, but I can see no means of doing so.  We have no friends in the city, and, could the child be got safely out of this place, there is nowhere whither she could go.”

“And it is for that I have sent for you,” the countess said.  “I knew that if it were in any way possible you would contrive her escape and aid her to carry it out.”

“Assuredly I will, my dear countess,” Malcolm said.  “You only wanted a friend outside, and now you have got one.  I see no difficulty about it.”

At this moment the door suddenly opened; the waiting maid put in her head and exclaimed, “The governor is alighting at the door.”  Malcolm at once seated himself at the side table and began oiling the wheels of the clock, while the countess and Thekla took up their work again and seated themselves, as before, by the couch of the count.  A moment later the attendant opened the door and in a loud voice announced the Baron of Steinburg.

The governor as he entered cast a keen glance at Malcolm, and then bowing ceremoniously approached the count and inquired after his health, and paid the usual compliments to the countess.  The count replied languidly that he gained strength slowly, while the countess said quietly that he had slept but badly and that his wound troubled him much.  It was well for Thekla that she was not obliged to take part in the conversation, for she would have found it impossible to speak quietly and indifferently, for every nerve was tingling with joy at Malcolm’s last words.  The prospect had seemed so hopeless that her spirits had sunk to the lowest ebb.  Her mother had done her best to cheer her, but the count, weakened by pain and illness, had all along taken the most gloomy view.  He had told himself that it was better for the girl to submit to her fate than to break her heart like a wild bird beating out its life against the bars of its cage, and he wished to show her that neither he nor the world would blame her for yielding to the tremendous pressure which would be put upon her.

For himself, he would have died a thousand times rather than renounce his faith; but he told himself that Thekla was but a child, that women cared little for dogmas, and that she would learn to pray as sincerely in a Catholic as in a Protestant church, without troubling her mind as to whether there were gross abuses in the government of the church, in the sale of absolutions, or errors in abstruse doctrines.  But to Thekla it had seemed impossible that she could become a Catholic.