"What ails you, Waldemar?" asked Leo in alarm, as, remorse springing up within him, he advanced towards his brother.
Waldemar raised himself, and, waving off Leo, turned to go without uttering a word, but with a face from which every drop of blood had receded.
At this moment the Princess made her appearance, accompanied by Dr. Fabian. The sound of their voices, growing louder and louder, had reached her in her room, and made it clear to her that something unusual was going on in the drawing-room. She came in quickly, and for an instant her entrance was unnoticed. Wanda stood vacillating between defiance and distress; but at this crisis the latter gained the upper hand, and, with the cry of a child confessing a fault and praying to be forgiven, she called to the young man to come back.
He stopped. "Have you anything else to say to me, Countess Morynska?"
The young Countess started. Never before had that tone of frigid, cutting contempt met her ear, and the burning blush which mantled to her face showed how keenly she felt it. But now the Princess barred her son's passage.
"What has happened? Where are you going, Waldemar?"
"Away from here," he answered in a dull low tone, without looking up.
"I cannot; let me go. I cannot stay!" and, thrusting his mother aside, he rushed out.
"Well, then, I must request of you an explanation of this strange scene," said the Princess, turning to the others. "Stay, Doctor!" she continued, as Dr. Fabian, who up to this time had remained at the door, an anxious spectator, now made as though he would follow his pupil. "There is evidently some misunderstanding here, and I must beg of you to undertake the task of clearing up any mistake existing in my son's mind. By rushing away in that violent manner, he has made it impossible for me to explain matters myself. What has happened? I insist on being told."
Wanda did not respond to this authoritative demand; she threw herself on the sofa, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Leo, on a sign from his mother, went up to her at the window, and related what had passed. The Princess's mien grew more and more ominously dark at every word he said, and it evidently cost her an effort to preserve her calm demeanour, as she turned to the Doctor at length and said, with much apparent composure--