In the meantime Von Prell, who at first had been at a complete loss, arrived at the proper policy to adopt.

"Yes, that's just it," he said, growing more aggrieved with each word.

"Is a love like ours to be concluded with a lukewarm homily? And that Schwertfeger--did I deserve being dismissed by you like an asthmatic old dog through the intermediation of a third person, a horrid, disgusting creature? Isn't it enough to make a man desperate after all he's done for you?"

"What--did you--do for me?" queried Lilly.

"Well--wasn't I a self-sacrificing comrade the whole time? Wasn't I disloyal even to my old colonel for your sake, that fine old gentleman, who saved my life, you might say? You see, all that's no small matter.

Do you suppose it didn't cut me to the quick? Do you suppose I didn't get the blues? And then to be fooling round here alone night after night with that dung-beetle, that Tommy--the beast smells, I tell you. So why not try to dull one's feelings? Shouldn't I--how shall I say?--deaden the anguish of lost love? Not even deaden it? It's a perfect mystery to me how you can demand such a thing of me. We speak different languages, my dear child--there's a yawning chasm dividing our natures--and you're even willing to risk our two lives for such mummery. As a rule, I'm _not_ an old aunt, but indeed, if only I had you out of this place."

Throughout this long speech he had walked about Lilly in a semicircle, with one hand thrust in the belt of his Norfolk jacket, making short, jerky steps, which forcefully expressed his righteous indignation.

Lilly sat on the sofa stiffly upright, mechanically turning her head after him now to the right, now to the left, and staring at him with great, uncomprehending eyes.

When he stopped speaking, he drew a cigarette from the case and energetically beat off the superfluous tobacco with the index finger of his left hand.

Lilly rose in all her height, leaving the sofa and the table next to the sofa far below her.

"Listen, Walter," she said, "from this moment everything between us is at an end."

"Why, wasn't it long ago?"

"I mean--inwardly, too."

"Oh, inwardly, too!" He made a little grimace. "With you that probably means if you have something in your stomach."

When Lilly saw her love so ridiculed and mutilated, she could no longer restrain herself. With an outcry she ran from the sofa, and hid her face--anywhere at all--on the wall next to the window.

"Get away from the window!" she heard him hiss.

Oh, what did she care!

In the extremity of his fright he took to pleading.

"Just come away from the window," he said. "It was all mere twaddle. I simply wanted to make you laugh again, nothing more. Please come away from the window."

She did not budge.

To crawl off somewhere! To crawl away and hide herself and all her shame.

She felt his hands seize her rudely.

That, too! To suffer violence, too!

She flung him off, wrestled with him, clawed at his neck--

And suddenly--

A whistling, a clash and clatter--shivers of gla.s.s flew over their heads, and a long, dark something, like the shaft of a lance, sped past them, knocked against something, rebounded, and fell at their feet.

The same instant Lilly felt a rush of cold air on her forehead, which aroused her from the stupefaction of surprise.

One of the two upper window panes had been broken.

No living creature was to be seen. But the balcony door yonder, which had been closed a moment before, now showed a dark opening, and was swinging shut.

"A narrow escape," murmured Walter, and stooped to pick up the mysterious thing from the floor, while the fragments of gla.s.s gritted beneath his feet.

"The pea-shooter," Lilly faltered.

"A mercy he didn't happen to have his fowling-piece at hand," said Walter, "else we'd be riddled into sieves."

With the back of his hand he wiped away the sweat of fright standing on his forehead in bright beads.

None the less he was a brave little chap, and knew on the instant what to do.

He sprang to the wardrobe under which Tommy had burrowed, fetched out his army revolver, and tested all its parts. Then he said:

"Now, please go into Leichtweg's room, and lock yourself in. The colonel's simply gone to load his gun. Then he'll be here."

But Lilly refused. Her wrath against him had completely evaporated.

"Let me stay with you, let me stay with you!" she begged, clasping his shoulders.

"Impossible, child," he replied, with the old masterful lift to his brows. "What's coming is men's business."

"Then I'll stand out in the hall, and receive him at your door."

He bit his lips.

"Well," he said, "if you take it that way, I can't help myself. Sit down, please."

He removed the key from the outside of the door, stuck it in the lock on the inside and cautiously turned it several times.

"Between loading and shooting," he said then, "there's a great big difference--but the devil knows."

He took out his watch, and listened intently for sounds from the outside, while he counted, "a half--one--one and a half--two. Probably can't find his cartridges." Then commandingly: "Do sit down. You'll need your legs to-day."

Lilly sank in one corner of the sofa, and he seated himself in the other, placing the watch between them on the b.u.mpy seat. Both counted now with their eyes fastened on the second hand. "Two and a half--three--three and a half--four--four and a half--five minutes."

Not a sound, save the wind howling in the bare branches.

Then it seemed to them they heard the trot of horses starting in the courtyard and dying away on the other side of the gates.

"Whom's he gone to fetch?" asked Walter. "We're not ready for seconds yet."

Red suns danced before Lilly's eyes. The ceiling began to rise and sink.

Walter kept on counting.