ust come again as those when you said, 'Up here we are in heaven,
and may leave the world to drive and bustle as it will.' Let us hold to
that. We were happy once, and shall be again. If you will be but kind
and loving, I will do the work of three. Have no fear; I did not marry
you for your money."

"Neither did I marry you for your money; it would not have been worth
the trouble. If riches had been my object, I might have chosen a very
different husband."

"We have lived together too long to be talking of marrying," interposed
Lenz. "Let us have dinner."

At table he related the affair of the wood. "Do you know what the
result will be?" asked Annele.

"What?"

"Nothing but your having to pay the wood-cutters' wages."

"That remains to be proved," said Lenz, and immediately after dinner
went again in search of the mayor, whom he had failed to find earlier
in the day.

On the way he was joined by poor Faller, pale as death, and crying:
"Oh, this is horrible, horrible! A thunder-bolt from a clear sky!"

Lenz tried to reassure him. Two and a half thousand florins was
something of a loss, to be sure, but he hoped to stand under it. He
thanked his faithful comrade for his sympathy.

"What!" cried Faller, stopping short on the road, "are you involved
too? He owes me thirty-one florins. He had that amount of mine in good
clocks, that I left with him as I should have left them in the bank,
meaning to pay off an instalment upon my house. Now I am put back at
least two years."

Lenz hurried on. He could not stop with his friend, but must be off to
the mayor's.

Faller looked sadly after him, almost forgetting his own misfortune in
that of his friend.

The doctor was shocked at the blow which had fallen on the landlord.
His own loss was insignificant, but he felt the disastrous effect the
failure would have on the whole district. The news of Lenz's loss
filled him with consternation. "Has he involved you also in his ruin?
Nothing now will surprise me. Is it possible? is it possible? How does
your wife bear it?" he asked, after a pause.

"She lays it all at my door."

Lenz brought up the matter of the forest, and prayed for speedy help,
that his house might not be exposed to the force of the storms, and
perhaps be buried by the mountain itself. The doctor acknowledged he
had right on his side. "To make a clean sweep of the forest would be an
injury to the whole district; perhaps destroy utterly our best spring
o