"Proceed with your story," he commanded, grinding his teeth.
"They didn't believe me, _Herr_, but they saw it was no good trying to get the truth out of me, and asked me no more questions. And then they held a consultation in low voices (but I have good ears, and understood all they were saying), as to whether they should lock me up till I found my tongue, and arrest the _gnädiger Herr_, and so on, and then they came to the conclusion that to blaze it abroad would cause too great a scandal in the district, and be a dishonour to the whole of Prussia, and as there was no direct proof, the affair might be left in the dark. I have forgotten the exact words, but it was something like that."
"Yes. Herr Merckel said I was to take myself off, or my presence might breed a pestilence in the house."
A silence ensued: then hastily gulping down three more glasses of the old wine, he said--
She jumped up from her chair and stared at him, her eyes starting with horror.
"_Herr_ ... I can't." The words rattled in her throat like a death-agony.
"You mean you refuse?" He too had risen, and stood looking at her with dilated eyes.
She folded her hands on her breast. "I have always been obedient, _Herr_, to your every wish. I have never been unwilling or grumbled. I'll go on doing all you order me to do. If you say, 'Go out and be stoned to death,' I'll go. But just this one thing, I beseech you from the bottom of my heart, don't ask me?"
He regarded her in wrathful amazement. So accustomed had he become to her unconditional obedience, that this explosion in her of a spark of resistance was incomprehensible to him. Was his power over her, that he had imagined unlimited, thus suddenly to end? Surely this woman had of her own accord made herself his body-slave? She had sold herself body and soul to his house, and therefore it was unpardonable presumption in her to assert unexpectedly that she had a will of her own.
The blood mounted hotly to his head, and his eyes flashed. "You shall!--I say you _shall_!"
She retreated and shrank against the wall. From the dark background her eyes shone out at him like a persecuted wild-cat's. "I won't," she muttered.
All the inherited brutality of the feudal master awoke in him. The wine, too, was doing its work. He sprang on her, and caught her by the breast.