Ere he himself went to the scene of the conflagration he hurried back to
his daughters.

While the girls were giving him his hat and cloak he told them where the
fire had broken out, and this caused another detention of the anxious
master of the house, for Eva seized her shoes and stockings and, kicking
her little slippers from her feet, declared that she, too, would not
remain absent from the place when her dear nuns were in danger. But her
father commanded her to stay with her mother and sister, and went to the
door, turning back once more on the threshold to his daughters with the
anxious entreaty: "Think of your mother!"

Another peal of thunder drowned the sound of his footsteps hurrying down
the stairs. When Els, who had watched her father from the window a short
time, went back to her sister, Eva dried her eyes and cheeks, saying:
"Perhaps he is right; but whenever my heart urges me to obey any warm
impulse, obstacles are put in my way. What a weak nonentity is the
daughter of an honourable Nuremberg family!"

Els heard this complaint with astonishment. Was this her Eva, her
"little saint," who yesterday had desired nothing more ardently than with
humble obedience, far from the tumult of the world, to become worthy of
her Heavenly Bridegroom, and in the quiet peace of the convent raise her
soul to God? What had so changed the girl in these few hours? Even the
most worldly-minded of her friends would have taken such an impeachment
ill.

But she had no time now to appeal to the conscience of her misguided
sister. Love and duty summoned her to her mother's couch. And then!