ith a
gentleness which surprised even her: "You are very kind, but I cannot,
must not remain here."

"The children, the little boys!" she exclaimed again, gazing up at him
with love-beaming eyes. Then his tortured heart seemed to shrink, and,
pressing his hand on his brow, he paused some time ere he answered
gloomily: "It is for them that I go. Words have been spoken which appeal
to me, and to you, too, Isabella: 'See that the innocent little creatures
are reared to be unlike their unhappy father.' And the person who uttered
them----"

"A sage, a great sage," giggled the countess, unable to control her
bitter wrath against the man whom she hated; but Siebenburg fiercely
retorted:

"Although no sage, at least no monster spitting venom."

"And you permit this insult to be offered to your grandmother?" Frau
Rosalinde Eysvogel wailed to her daughter as piteously as if the injury
had been inflicted on herself. But Isabella only clung more closely to
her husband, heeding neither her mother's appeal nor her father's warning
not to be deluded by Siebenburg's empty promises.

While the old countess vainly struggled for words, Rosalinde Eysvogel
stood beside the lofty mantelpiece, weeping softly. Before Siebenburg
appeared, spite of the early hour and the agitating news which she had
just received, she had used her leisure for an elaborate toilette. A long
trailing robe of costly brocade, blue on the left side and yellow on the
right, now floated around her tall figure. When the knight returned she
had looked radiant in her gold and gems, like a princess. Now, crushed
and feeble, she presented a pitiable image of powerless yet offensively
hollow splendour. It would have required too much exertion to assail her
son-in-law with invectives, like her energetic mother; but when she saw
her daughter, to whom she had already appealed several times in a tone of
anguished entreaty, rest her proud head so tenderly on her husband's
broad breast, as she had done during the first weeks of their marriage,
but never since, the unhappy woman clearly perceived that the knight's
incredible demand was meant seriously. What she had believed an idle
boast he actually requested. Yonder hated intruder expected her to part
with her only daughter, who was far more to her than her unloved husband,
her exacting mother, or the son who restricted her wishes, whom she had
never understood, and against whom her heart had long been hardened. But
it could