It
was very well to talk of going into service, but where was the house
that would receive her? And then, as to Ludovic Valcarm! In regard to
him, it was not easy for her to come to any resolution; but she still
thought that she would be willing to make that compact, if her aunt,
on the other side, would be willing to make it also.

CHAPTER VI

All September went by, and all October, and life in the red house in
the island in Nuremberg was a very sad life indeed. During this time
Linda Tressel never spoke to Ludovic Valcarm, nor of him; but she saw
him once, standing among the beer-casks opposite to the warehouse.
Had she not so seen him, she would have thought that he had vanished
altogether out of the city, and that he was to be no more heard of
or seen among them. He was such a man, and belonged to such a set,
that his vanishing in this fashion would have been a thing to create
no surprise. He might have joined his father, and they two might
be together in any quarter of the globe,--on any spot,--the more
distant, the more probable. It was one of Linda's troubles that she
knew really nothing of the life of the man she loved. She had always
heard things evil spoken of him, but such evil-speaking had come
from those who were his enemies,--from his cousin, who had been
angry because Ludovic had not remained with him on the stool in the
town-hall; and from Madame Staubach, who thought ill of almost all
young men, and who had been specially prejudiced against this young
man by Peter Steinmarc. Linda did not know what she should believe.
She had heard that the Brothers Sach were respectable tradesmen,
and it was in Valcarm's favour that he was employed by them. She
had thought that he had left them; but now, seeing him again among
the barrels, she had reason to presume that his life could not be
altogether unworthy of him. He was working for his bread, and what
more could be required from a young man than that? Nevertheless, when
she saw him, she sedulously kept herself from his sight, and went,
almost at once, back to the kitchen, from whence there was no view on
to the Ruden Platz.

During these weeks life was very sad in this house. Madame Staubach
said but little to her niece of her past iniquity in the matter
of Ludovic's visit, and not much of Peter's suit; but she so bore
herself that every glance of her eye, every tone of her voice, every
nod of her head, was a separate rebuke. She hardly ever left Lin