is not a snake--and only yesterday I was so proud, plaiting my
hair."

With feverish, trembling fingers she took down her hair, and let it
float over her shoulders, making her look still more wild and wretched.

Lenz and Petrowitsch had considerable difficulty in pacifying her; the
uncle at last insisted on Lenz leaving Annele alone, and going with him
to the next room, when Petrowitsch said to him:--"Pray endeavour to be
composed, for Annele's sake, or she will die before any help can reach
us. I never beheld such a revulsion in any human being, I could
scarcely have believed it. Such a shock to the whole system must be
very trying. Now tell me what letter was it that I found in your
child's frock, when I placed Bueble on her feet?"

Lenz related the desperate determination he had come to, and said it
was his farewell to Annele and to life, and begged his uncle to give it
back to him; but his uncle held it fast, and read it out in a low
voice.

Lenz shuddered at hearing the words repeated, that he had intended
being spoken after his death. He watched the expression of his uncle's
face, so far as it was visible in the blue light, to see what he
thought of it; Petrowitsch however, did not once look up, and read on
to the end, when he gave one quick sharp glance at Lenz. He then put
the letter in his pocket.

"Give me the letter, and I will burn it," said Lenz, in a whisper.

In the same suppressed tone, Petrowitsch answered:--"No, I mean to keep
it, I have only half known you till now."

He was uncertain whether Petrowitsch meant this for good or evil, but
the old man stood up, and took down his brother's file from the wall,
holding it in his hand, which pressed on the well worn hollow, produced
in long years of work, by his dead brother's fingers.

Perhaps at that moment he made an inward vow, that if they were
rescued, he would supply the place of a father to Lenz, but he only
said: "Come here, I want to whisper something to you. The basest action
a man can commit is suicide; I knew the son of such a man, who
said to me--'My father made his fate light, but ours hard!' and that
son----" here Petrowitsch suddenly paused, and then said, close to his
ear--"cursed his father's memory!"

Lenz started back in horror, and almost sunk to the ground on hearing
these words, but Annele at this moment called to him:--"Lenz, for God's
sake come here!" They hurried to her, and she said, still in a most
excited state, "Oh!