Yet the magistrate would not be soothed. Not until he saw from the
arbour, whilst the dessert still remained on the table; Cordula riding up
on horseback did he cease recapitulating his numerous objections and go
to meet the countess.

To his straightforward mind and calm feelings the most incomprehensible
thing had been Frau Christine's description of the soul-life of her
sister and her niece. He knew the terrible impressions which even a man
could not escape amongst the rabble in the hospital, and had used the
comparison that what awaited Eva there was like giving a weak child
pepper.

As Countess Cordula, aided by the old man's hand, swung herself from the
saddle of her spirited dappled steed, he thought: "If it were she who
wanted to tend our sick rascals instead of the delicate Eva, I wouldn't
object. She'd manage Satan himself whilst my little godchild was holding
intercourse with her angels in heaven."

In the arbour Cordula explained why she had not come before; but her
account told the elderly couple nothing new.

When she went to see Ernst Ortlieb in the watch-tower that morning he had
already been taken to the Town Hall. No special proceedings were
required, since he was his own accuser, and many trustworthy witnesses
deposed that he had been most grossly irritated--nay, as his advocate
represented, had wounded the tailor in self-defence. Yet Ernst Ortlieb
could not be dismissed from imprisonment at once, because the tailor's
representative demanded a much larger amount of blood-money than the
court was willing to grant. The wound was not dangerous to life, but