master. In collusion with a maid-servant he was also said to have
maintained the love correspondence between Herr Ernst Ortlieb's two
daughters, a Swiss knight, and Boemund Altrosen."

"Infamous!" cried Eva. "What, in the name of all the saints, have we to
do with Altrosen? "You certainly have very little," replied Frau
Christine, "but the Ortlieb mansion has all the more. To-night he will
again be seen before its door, and if still later he appears with his
lute under Countess Cordula's windows and is heard singing to her, it
wouldn't surprise me."

"And people," exclaimed Eva with increasing indignation, "will add
another link to the chain of slander. If a Vorkler and her companions
repeat the calumny, who can wonder? But that the magistrates should
believe such shameful things about the brothers of their own fellow-
member----"

"It was precisely because they do not believe it and wish to keep you
away from the court," her uncle interrupted, "that they insisted upon the
examination. They desired to show the people by their verdict and the
severity of the procedures how thoroughly in earnest they were. But
whilst I was compelled to absent myself an hour because the Emperor
wished to inspect the new towers on the city wall, and I had to attend
him in the character of showman, they sentenced the poor fellow, since
his loose tongue had brought the whole rout and rabble against him, to
torture so severe that I shuddered when told of it."

"And Biberli?" asked Eva, trembling with suspense.

"All honour is due the man!" cried Herr Berthold, raising his cap. "The