her duty and her right to thrust it aside. Wolff would not be Wolff if
even for a moment he believed such a thing possible. They ought not,
could not, doubt each other. Though all Nuremberg should listen to the
base calumny and turn its back upon her, she was sure of her Wolff. Ay,
he would cherish her with twofold tenderness when he learned by whom this
terrible suffering had been inflicted upon her.

Drawing a long breath, she again fixed her eyes upon her mother's
portrait. Had she now rushed out to tell the old man who had so cruelly
injured her--oh, it would have lightened her heart!--the wrong he had
done and what she thought of him, her mother would certainly have stopped
her, saying: "Remember that he is your betrothed husband's father." She
would not forget it; she could not even hate the ruined man.

Any effort to change her father's mood now--she saw it plainly--would be
futile. Later, when his just anger had cooled, perhaps he might be
persuaded to aid the endangered house.

Herr Ernst gazed after her sorrowfully as, with a gesture of farewell,
she silently left the room to tell her lover's father that he had come in
vain.

The old merchant was waiting in the entry, where the wails of the
servants and the women in the neighbourhood who, according to custom,
were beating their brows and breasts and rending their garments, could be
heard distinctly.

Deadly pale, as if ready to sink, he tottered towards the door.

When Els saw him hesitate at the top of the few steps leading to the