"Every evening have I named your name it my prayers said the old
grandmother." Each time when the harbingers of bad weather showed
themselves, and my sons were on the sea, so that we hung out flags
or lighted beacons as signals, did I think of the words which had
escaped my lips, and which the wicked Heinrich had caught up; I
feared lest our Lord might cause my children to suffer for my
injustice."

"Be calm, my dear old woman!" said Otto. "Keep for yourself the
holy cross, on the virtue of which you rely; may it remove each
sorrow from your own heart!"

"No, I am guilty of my own sorrow! yours has a stranger laid upon
your heart! Only the sorrow of the guiltless will the cross bear."

The beautiful sentiment which, unconsciously to her, lay in these
words, affected Otto. He accepted the present, preserved it, sought
to calm the old woman, and once more at parting glanced toward the
splendid sea expanse which formed its own boundary.

It was almost evening before he reached the house where Rosalie
awaited him. His last scene with the blind fisher-woman had again
thrown him into his gloomy mood. "After all, she really knows
nothing!" said he to himself. "This Heinrich is my evil angel!
might he only die soon!" It was in Otto's soul as if he could shoot
a ball through Heinrich's heart. "Did he only lie buried under the
heather, and with him my secret! I will have blood! yes, there is
something devilish in man! Were Heinrich only dead! But others live
who know my birth,--my sister! my poor, neglected sister, she who
had the same right to intellectual development as myself! How I