Now she remembered where the dying woman had heard the phrase.

Her Aunt Christine had used it recently in her mother's presence. Young
Kunz Schurstab had fallen into evil ways in Lyons. Every one, even his
own father, had given him up for lost; but after several years he
returned home and proved himself capable of admirable work, both in his
father's business and in the Council. In reply to Frau Ortlieb's enquiry
where this transformation in the young man had occurred, her aunt
answered:

"In the forge fire of life." Eva told herself that she had intentionally
kept aloof from its flames, and in the convent, perhaps, they would never
have reached her. Yesterday they had seized upon her for the first time,
and henceforward she would not evade them, that she might obey her mother
and become worthy of the man praying silently yonder. He owed to his
heroic courage and good sword a renowned name; but what had she ever done
save selfishly to provide for her own welfare in this world and the next?
She had not even been strong enough to hold the head of the mother, to
whom she owed everything and who had loved her so tenderly, when the
convulsions attacked her.

Even after she closed her eyes in death--she had noticed it--she had been
kept from every duty in the household and for the beloved dead, because
it was deemed unsuitable for her, and Els and every one avoided putting
the serious demands of life between the "little saint" and her
aspirations towards the bliss of heaven. Yet Eva knew that she could
accomplish whatever she willed to do, and instead of using the strength
which she felt stirring with secret power in her fragile body, she had
preferred to let it remain idle, in order to dwell in another world from