struggled for composure, and when his eyes met the imploring gaze of the
basely defamed girl, he said to himself that he must maintain his self-
control in order not to afford the frivolous revellers who surrounded him
an entertaining spectacle.

Wolff was dear to him, but before he would have led his Els to the house
where the miserable "Mustache" lived, and whose head was the coldhearted,
gloomy man whose words had just struck him like a poisoned arrow, he,
whom the Lord had bereft of his beloved, gallant son, would have been
ready to deprive himself of his daughters also and take both to the
convent. Eva longed to go, and Els might find there a new and beautiful
happiness, like his sister, the Abbess Kunigunde. In the Eysvogel house,
never!

During these hasty reflections Els extended her hand toward him, and the
shining gold circlet which her lover had placed on her ring finger
glittered in the torchlight. A thought darted through his brain with the
speed of lightning, and without hesitation he drew the ring from the hand
of his astonished daughter, whispering curtly, yet tenderly, in reply to
her anxious cry, "What are you doing?"

"Trust me, child."

Then hastily approaching Casper Eysvogel, he beckoned to him to move a
little aside from the group.

The other followed, believing that Herr Ernst would now promise the sum
requested, yet firmly resolved, much as he needed it, to refuse.

Ernst Ortlieb, however, made no allusion to business matters, but with a