hild, and
tell him what she had done for it.

This state of affairs had continued until two months before. Then,
at Schaffhausen, her darling had suddenly been attacked with violent
convulsions, and the feeble intellect, which her love had so toilsomely
and faithfully waked from its slumber, only too soon attained eternal
peace. In all Kuni's sorrowful life she had scarcely experienced any
grief so bitter. When she closed the little eyes which had gazed into
her pale face so often and so tenderly, it seemed as if the sun, moon,
and stars had lost their light, and henceforth she was condemned to live
in dreary gloom.

What terrible days had followed the child's death! Cyriax raved as if he
had really been seized with the lunacy whose pretence helped him to
beg his bread. Besides, he gave himself up to unbridled indulgence in
brandy, and, when drunk, he was capable of the most brutal acts.
The dead Juli's mother, who, spite of an evil youth and a lenient
conscience, was by no means one of the worst of women, had to endure the
harshest treatment from her profligate companion.

The blow which had fallen upon him filled him with savage rage, and he
longed to inflict some pain upon all who came in his way that they, too,
might feel what it was to suffer.

The death of his "sweet little Juli" appeared to have hardened the last
tender spot in his brutal soul.

Kuni was the only person toward whom at first he imposed some restraint
upon himself. True, without any consideration for the girl's presence,
he sometimes asked Gitta why they still burdened themselves with the
useless hobbler and did not sell the cart and the donkey. But though
there was no lack of good offers for the excellent Spanish beast of
burden, he allowed matters to remain as before. If the rage seething in
his heart led him, in his drunken frenzy, to make Kuni feel its effects,
too, the pleading glance of the blue eyes, still large and expressive,
with which she had so often hushed the wailing child, sufficed to soothe
him.

Yesterday, for the first time, he had seriously threatened to drive the
ropedancer away, and she knew that Cyriax was capable of anything. True,
his wife was attached to Kuni, but she had little influence over her
vicious husband. So the sick cripple might only too easily find herself
left on the highway.

Still, she had given Cyriax cause for the threat. All day and during the
night she had been busy with the unfortunate mother an