"You are so changed, so entirely changed, Ulrich I cannot tell what has
come over me. I have anticipated this hour day and night, and now it is
here;--what is this? What has placed itself between us?"

"What, indeed!" he indignantly exclaimed, advancing towards her with a
threatening air. "What? Surely you must know! Your mother has destroyed
your regard for the poor bungler. Here I stand! Have I kept my promise,
yes or no? Have I become a monster, a venomous serpent? Do not look at
me so again, do not! It will do no good; to you or me. I will not allow
myself to be trifled with!"

Ulrich had shouted these words, as if some great injustice had been done
him, and he believed himself in the right.

Coello tried to release himself from his daughter, to confront the
passionately excited man, but she held him back, and with a pale face and
trembling voice, but proud and resolute manner, answered:

"No one has trifled with you, I least of all; my love has been earnest,
sacred earnest."

"Earnest!" interrupted Ulrich, with cutting irony.

"Yes, yes, sacred earnest;--and when my mother told me you had killed a
man and left Venice for a worthless woman's sake, when it was rumored,
that in Ferrara you had become a gambler, I thought: 'I know him better,
they are slandering him to destroy the love you bear in your heart.'
I did not believe it; but now I do. I believe it, and shall do so, till
you have withstood your trial. For the gambler I am too good, to the
artist Navarrete I will joyfully keep my promise. Not a word, I will