Hitherto Barbara had remained silent, but her breath had come more and more quickly, the tremor of the nostrils had increased; but at the physician’s last remark she could control herself no longer, and burst forth like a madwoman:  “And you pretend to be my friend, pretend to be a fairminded man?  You are the tool, the obedient echo of the infamous wretch who now stretches his robber hand toward my most precious possession!  Ay, look at me as though my frank speech was rousing the greatest wrath in your cowardly soul!  Where was the ocean-deep gulf when the perjured betrayer clasped me in his arms, uttered vows of love, and called himself happy because his possession of me would beautify the evening of his life?  Now my voice has lost its melting music, and he sends his accomplice to leave the mute ’nightingale’—­how often he has called me so!—­to her fate.”

Here she faltered, and her cheeks glowed with excitement as, with her clinched hand on her brow, she continued:  “Must everything be changed and overturned because this traitor is the Emperor, and the betrayed only the child of a man who, though plain, is worthy of all honour, and who, besides, was not found on the highway, but belongs to the class of knights, from whom even the proudest races of sovereigns descend?  You trample my father and me underfoot, to exalt the grandeur of your master.  You make him the idol, to humble me to a worm; and what you grant the she-wolf—­the right of defence when men undertake to rob her of her young—­you deny me, and, because I insist upon it, I must be a deluded, unbridled creature.”

Here she sobbed aloud and covered her face with her hands; but Dr. Mathys had been obliged to do violence to his feelings in order not to put a speedy end to the fierce attack.  Her glance had been like that of an infuriated wild beast as the rage in her soul burst forth with elementary power, and the sharpness of her hoarse voice still pierced him to the heart.

Probably the man of honour whom she had so deeply-insulted felt justified in paying her in the same coin, but the mature and experienced physician knew how much he must place to the account of the physical condition of this unfortunate girl, and did not conceal from himself that her charges were not wholly unjustifiable.  So he restrained himself, and when she had gained control over the convulsive sobbing which shook her bosom, he told her his intention of leaving her and not returning until he could expect a less hostile reception.  Meanwhile she might consider whether the Emperor’s decision was not worthy of different treatment.  He would show his good will to her anew by concealing from his Majesty what he had just heard, and what she, at no distant day, would repent as unjust and unworthy of her.

Then Barbara angrily burst forth afresh:  “Never, never, never will that happen!  Neither years nor decades would efface the wrong inflicted upon me to-day.  But oh, how I hate him who makes this shameful demand—­yes, though you devour me with your eyes—­hate him, hate him!  I do so even more ardently than I loved him!  And you?  Why should you conceal it?  From kindness to me?  Perhaps so!  Yet no, no, no!  Speak freely!  Yes, you must, must tell him so to his face!  Do it in my name, abused, ill-treated as I am, and tell him——­”