d rush about here and there, as they please; we can be happy
without that.' We once were happy, and we shall be so again; if you are
only kind to me, I can do as much work as three men, and you need have
no regret on my account, for I did not marry you for your money."

"Nor did I marry you for yours; indeed, I don't think it would have
been worth while; if I had wanted to be rich, I might have got many a
wealthy husband."

"We have been too long together to talk of the marriages we might have
made," said Lenz, interrupting her; "let us go to dinner."

After dinner, Lenz mentioned the affair about the wood, and Annele
said, "Do you know what will be the result?"

"What?"

"Nothing, but that you will be obliged to pay the woodcutters for their
day's work."

"We shall see about that," said Lenz, and went again in the afternoon
to the Doctor's, whom he had not found at home in the morning. On his
way there, he was joined by a very sorrowful companion. Faller came up
to him as pale as death, and exclaiming: "Oh! it is dreadful, too
dreadful! a flash of forked lightning in a calm bright sky!"

Lenz tried to cheer him, saying: "That certainly between three and
four hundred gulden were a heavy loss, but he had no doubt of being
able to bear up against it," and thanked his faithful comrade for his
sympathy. All at once Faller stood still, as if rooted to the spot.
"What! has he involved you too? He owes me thirty-one gulden for
clocks, by which I made very little profit, but I let him keep them as
if they had been in a savings' bank, to pay for a paling to go round my
house; now I am thrown back at least two years."

Lenz wrung his hands, but said he could not stay another moment, as he
must go to the magistrate instantly.

Faller looked after him sadly, and almost forgot his own misery in that
of his friend.

The Doctor was much depressed by the stroke that had ruined the
Landlord of the Lion. The sum that he lost himself was not great, but
the bankruptcy was a misfortune not only to the village, but to the
whole adjacent country.

When Lenz related that he had also suffered, the Doctor exclaimed, in
horror: "So he has involved you too! nothing can surprise me now. How
could he be so wicked? How had he the heart to do it?" but after a time
he said: "How does your wife bear it?"

"She does not bear it at all, she places it all on my shoulders."

Lenz detailed the history of the wood, and urged instant help, that