whose presence in the Convivium had often helped her to curb an impetuous
impulse, pleased Barbara, and yet awakened the painful feeling that in
accepting it without resistance she was guilty of a deception. Besides,
she had not confessed, and it seemed as if, in feeling the young
heretic's kiss an honour, she were adding to the burden which had
not yet been removed from her conscience.

Yet she could not overcome an emotion of rare pleasure when Frau Sabina,
after beckoning to her husband, took her hand and led her into the
reception room. Erasmus Eckhart, the adopted son of the house, hastened
toward Barbara to greet her as an acquaintance of his school days,
flushing deeply in his surprise at her great beauty as he did so.

But the mistress of the house gave him no time to renew the relations of
childhood, and led her away from him to her husband and her mother-in-
law, a woman of ninety, to whom she presented her with kind, nay, with
extremely flattering, words. Barbara lowered her eyes in confusion, and
did not see how, at her entrance, Wolf's face had blanched and old Frau
Hiltner had sat up in her cushioned arm-chair at the window to look her
sharply and fixedly in the eyes with the freedom of age.

Meanwhile the man from the hall had stationed himself beside the door in
the same attitude, with his hands clasped under his chin and his cap
between his breast and arm, and stood motionless. He did not appear to
be at ease, and gnawed his thick lower lip with a troubled look as he
occasionally cast a glance at the strong countenance of Martin Luther,
whose portrait, the size of life, gazed at him from its gilt frame on the
opposite wall.

Barbara did not regain complete self-control until the syndic asked his