laything must now see that her ideas were more correct than his.

She sat long in silence, moving her lips, and with a scornful, exultant
expression, as if she were uttering to her husband all her present
thoughts. Pranken thought it incumbent on him to add, that in a short
time the family would be as much respected as before.

"Do you believe that we shall be ennobled then?"

Pranken was perplexed what reply to make, for it seemed as if the woman
did not yet comprehend what had happened. He evaded a direct answer,
and only said that he remained true to the family, and regarded himself
as a son of the house.

"Yes, to-morrow ought to be the wedding. Here in Europe, you have so
many formalities. I'll drive to church with you. But where's Manna? She
has horribly neglected me."

"But, my dear Baron, it is well, this connection with the tutor's
family will now come to an end. Don't let it continue any longer, dear
Baron."

She requested Fraeulein Perini to tell Manna to come to her.

Pranken could not comprehend how this woman, half childish, half
cunning, sometimes malicious, sometimes peevish, could be also
sometimes so affectionate; but there was no time now to try to solve
the riddle. He besought the Mother--such was the appellation he now
gave to Frau Ceres--to leave Manna alone for a few days; he would first
see her alone, and then they would come together to the mother and ask
her blessing.

"I give you my blessing now," said Frau Ceres, forgetting herself so
far as to give him both hands.

She told him that Bella had been there, and had hardly shown herself to
her; that she had come, and then had driven away again in a manner that
she couldn't comprehend at all.

Here a shot was heard.

"He has shot himself; he has done it now!" cried Frau Ceres, in a
singular tone; it was not lamentation, nor laughter, but something
peculiar, utterly inexplicable.

Pranken hurried away.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HAND-WRITING ON THE WALL.

Sonnenkamp had seated himself in his room, and the letter-bag lay
before him, but he did not open it. What matters it what the outside
world desired! One thought was uppermost, that he must do something,
something startling, something that would shatter the whole world to
pieces. What? He did not yet know. He sat speechless in the midst of
the fairest landscape, with the windows darkened, as in a cellar.

No, not harm thyself,