hat Valentin hurried
to the bed-side with a cordial, and gave his mistress plainly to
understand that her interview had been too long. So after a few further
directions, she crept softly out on tip-toe, and in the lobby came upon
Lisabethli.

"You have been listening?" said she sternly.

"Dearest mother, forgive me," returned her child. "I could not help it.
I needs must know how it all happened. God be praised and thanked--I
was right--he is innocent."

"Come down, child, you have nothing to do up here. Should any one call
I am engaged. I must sit down at once and write to his mother."

* * * * *

But nevertheless a visitor came whom neither Donate could send away,
nor Lisabethli receive alone. It was no other than the chief sergeant,
the greatest man in the town next to the mayor, and distantly related
to Frau Helena. He came on the part of the Town Council to apologise
for the intrusion of the previous night, and also to say that the
disorders on the island should now be effectually put a stop to by the
closing of the tavern, which had long been a thorn in the side of the
civic authorities. As to the savage doings of yesterday evening, a
mystery lay over them which up to the present hour no one had been able
to penetrate. Both combatants had disappeared as completely as though
the earth had swallowed them up, their bloody traces had been washed
away by the heavy rain, and nothing was known of their names or their
antecedents. Only a boat usually fastened to the bridge had been found
two or three miles from the town keel uppermost, and the landlord of
the Stork stated that a horse had been left in his stable last evening,
whose rider had never made his appearance since.

During this communication Frau Helena had often changed colour, but did
not utter a syllable which could have betrayed her secret knowledge,
nay, she was even careful not to speak a word of any kind, as it must
needs have been at least indirectly untrue. As soon as she was alone
again, she wrote to Frau Martina Brucker in Augsburg, judiciously
keeping back all that might have made her uneasy as to her son's
conduct, and concluding by a cordially expressed promise to nurse
him as a real mother might, since she--this she added with silent
tears--was not so favoured by Heaven as to have her own son under her
roof.

This letter she herself took in the afternoon to the post, accompanied
by her daughter, witho