sult of Felix's interference. He, who was
twice as strong mentally and physically as this effeminate town-bred
man, would have been routed signally, and behold, the weak one in gray
gloves had chased the savage from the field, and was master of the
situation! He felt vexed, yet he wished to conceal his vexation. He
saw Felix calmly conversing with Evila, whose deliverer he had been.
Ivan was not going to stand open-mouthed looking at the hero.

"Let us go on," he said to Raune. "Herr Kaulmann can follow us if he
wishes."

Herr Kaulmann was not inclined to continue his walk. A full hour
afterwards, when they were returning, he met them. He said he had been
looking everywhere for them without effect. He had done a good
morning's work in their absence. Finding himself alone in the yard
with the girl, he had spoken to her in a sympathizing tone.

"My poor child, what did you do to that brute, that he should ill-use
you so cruelly?"

The girl dried her eyes with the corner of her apron and made an
effort to smile. It was a piteous attempt, tragic in its effort to
hide her sufferings.

"Oh, sir, the whole thing was only a joke. He only pretended to strike
me."

"A nice joke! Look at the welts his blows have made."

He took from his pocket a little case, which held his pocket-comb, a
dandified affair with a small looking-glass, which he held before her
eyes.

Evila reddened over face and neck when she saw the disfiguring marks
of her lover's affection. She spoke with some anger in her voice--

"Sir, you have been very kind, and I will tell you all about it. I
have a little brother who is a cripple. As soon as father died mother
married again. Her husband was a drunkard, and when he was tipsy he
would beat us and tear my hair. Once he threw my brother, who was only
three years old, down a height, and since then he has been crippled.
His bones are bent and weak, and he has to go on crutches; his
breath, too, is affected; he can hardly breathe from asthma, and this
was stepfather's doing. But that did not soften him; on the contrary,
he persecuted the poor baby, and it was ten times worse after mother
died. How many blows I have had to bear, and glad I was to get them if
I could only spare the child! At last stepfather fell from the shaft;
he was drunk, and he broke his neck. A good thing it was, too; and
since then we have lived alone, and what I earn does for us both. But
now I am going to marry Peter, and Peter hat