nothing can now disturb, nor for you. We alone----"

"You certainly," Herr Ernst interrupted bitterly, "were made to feel how
far superior in virtue they considered themselves to you, who are better
and purer than all of them. But keep up Eva's courage. I have been
talking with your Uncle Pfinzing and your Aunt Christine. You yourself
took them into your confidence, and we will consult together how the
serpent's head is to be crushed."

He turned away as he spoke, but Els went back to her sister, and after a
brief prayer they left the church with bowed heads.

The sedan-chairs were waiting outside. Each was to be borne home
separately, but both preferred, spite of the bright summer weather, to
draw the curtains, that unseen they might weep, and ask themselves how
such wrongs could have been inflicted upon the dead woman and themselves.

The respect of high and low for the Ortlieb family had been most
brilliantly displayed when the body of the son, slain in battle, had been
interred in the chapel of his race. And their mother? How many had held
her dear! to how many she had been kind, loving, and friendly! How great
a sympathy the whole city had shown during her illness, and how many of
all classes had attended the mass for her soul! And the burial which had
just taken place?

True, on her father's account all the members of the Council were
present, but scarcely half the wives had appeared. Their daughters--Els
had counted them--numbered only nine, and but three were included among
her friends. The others had probably come out of curiosity. And the
common people, the artisans, the lower classes, who in countless numbers