en the unhappy woman to entreat protection
against his barbarity. It was as well I should think so, and it served
to soften the grief and assuage the intensity of the sorrow the event
caused me. I cried over it two entire days and part of a third; and so
engrossed was I with this affliction that not a thought of myself, or of
my own destitution, ever crossed me.

"Do you know where my father is?" asked I of the banker.

"Yes," said he, dryly.

"May I have his address? I wish to write to him."

"This is what he send for message," said he, producing a telegram, the
address of which he had carefully torn off. "It is of you he speak: 'Do
what you like with him except bother me. Let him have whatever money
is in your hands to my credit, and let him understand he has no more to
expect from Roger Norcott.'"

"May I keep this paper, sir?" asked I, in a humble tone.

"I see no reason against it. Yes," muttered he. "As to the moneys,
Eccles have drawn eighty pound; there is forty remain to you."

I sat down and covered my face with my hands. It was a habit with me
when I wanted to apply myself fully to thought; but Herr Heinfetter
suspected that I had given way to grief, and began to cheer me up. I at
once undeceived him, and said, "No, I was not crying, sir; I was only
thinking what I had best do. If you allow me, I will go up to my room,
and think it over by myself. I shall be calmer, even if I hit on nothing
profitable."

I passed twelve hours alone, occasionally dropping off to sleep out of
sheer weariness, for my brain worked hard, travelling over a wide space,
and taking in every contingency and every accident I could think of. I
might go back and seek out my mother; but to what end, if I should only
become a dependant on her? No; far better that I should try and obtain
some means of earning a livelihood, ever so humble, abroad, than spread
the disgrace of my family at home. Perhaps Herr Heinfetter might accept
my services in some shape; I could be anything but a servant.

When I told him I wished to earn my bread, he looked doubtingly at me
in silence, shaking his head, and muttering, "Nein, niemals, nein," in
every cadence of despair.

"Could you not try me, sir?" pleaded I, earnestly; but his head moved
sadly in refusal.

"I will think of it," he said at last, and he left me.

He was as good as his word; he thought of it for two whole days, and
then said that he had a correspondent on the shore of the Adria