side! A few minutes had sufficed to show the ropedancer all this, and
suggest the question whether it was possible that the most faithful of
husbands would thus basely neglect, for the sake of a child, the young
wife whom he had won in spite of the hardest obstacles, on whose account
he had so coldly and cruelly rejected her, the object of so much wooing,
and who, this very day, was the fairest of all the beautiful ladies who
surrounded her.

In an instant her active mind transported her to the soul of the hitherto
favoured wife of the man whom she loved, and her strangely constituted
woman's heart filled with resentment against the young creature below,
who had not even attained womanhood, and yet seemed to gain, without
effort, the prize for which she had vainly striven with painful longing.

She, whose heart had remained free from jealousy of the woman who stood
between her and the man she loved, like a solid bulwark erected by Fate
itself, was now suddenly overmastered by this passion.

Yet she did not turn against the person to whom Lienhard belonged, as he
did to the city, or to his own family, and who was united to him by the
will of Heaven, but against the mysterious young creature at his side,
who changed with every passing moment.

This child--no, this maiden--must be a being of some special nature. Like
the sirens of whom she had heard, she possessed the mysterious, enviable
power of conquering the iron resistance of even the strongest man.

Like a flash of lightning, Kuni, whose kind heart cherished resentment
against few and wished no one any evil, suddenly felt an ardent desire to
drive the little witch from Lienhard's side, even by force, if necessary.