dowerless herself, had many poor and extravagant relations besides her
daughter and her debt-laden, pleasure-loving husband, Sir Seitz
Siebenburg, who, it could not be denied, all drew heavily upon the
coffers of the ancient mercantile house. Yet it was one of the richest
in Nuremberg. Yes, something of which she was still ignorant must be
oppressing Wolff, and, with the firm resolve to give him no peace until
he confessed everything to her, she returned to the couch of her invalid
mother.




CHAPTER II.

Wolff had scarcely vanished from the street, and Els from the window,
when a man's slender figure appeared, as if it had risen from the earth,
beside the spurge-laurel tree at the left of the house. Directly after
some one rapped lightly on the pavement of the yard, and in a few minutes
the heavy ironbound oak doors opened and a woman's hand beckoned to the
late guest, who glided swiftly along in the narrow line of shadow cast by
the house and vanished through the entrance.

The moon looked after him doubtfully. In former days the narrow-
shouldered fellow had been seen near the Ortlieb house often enough, and
his movements had awakened Luna's curiosity; for he had been engaged in
amorous adventure even when work was still going on at the recently
completed convent of St. Clare--an institution endowed by the Ebner
brothers, to which Herr Ernst Ortlieb added a considerable sum. At that
time--about three years before--the bold fellow had gone there to keep
tryst evening after evening, and the pretty girl who met him was