"Why do you call Wilhelm a tramp," she said coldly.

"What is he then, if he is not a tramp?" retorted John.

"He is no tramp," she replied, still more doggedly.

"What do you know about him?" said John.

Carlen made no reply. Her silence irritated John more than any words
could have done; and losing self-control, losing sight of prudence, he
poured out on her a torrent of angry accusation and scornful reproach.

She stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. Even in his hot wrath,
John noticed this unwonted downcast look, and taunted her with it.

"You have even caught his miserable hangdog trick of not looking anybody
in the face," he cried. "Look up now! look me in the eye, and say what
you mean by all this."

Thus roughly bidden, Carlen raised her blue eyes and confronted her
brother with a look hardly less angry than his own.

"It is you who have to say to me what all this means that you have been
saying," she cried. "I think you are out of your senses. I do not know
what has happened to you." And she turned to walk back to the house.

John seized her shoulders in his brawny hands, and whirled her round
till she faced him again.

"Tell me the truth!" he said fiercely; "do you love this Wilhelm?"