e night
before, and was a long time gone with him."

"So! Come, I'll cure him speedily." He went down to the stable, looked
grimly at the horse, and then shot him through the head. The horse gave
one hoarse rattle, and fell headlong.

"So! it's all over now!" cried Sonnenkamp. "Now you are free!"

As he was leaving the stable, Pranken came up.

"What have you done?"

"Pooh! I've shot a horse, and every one who doesn't mind," he said in
a loud tone, so that all the servants might hear, "knows what to
expect."

He ordered the groom to saddle another horse.

Joseph came with the inquiry from Frau Ceres as to what had happened.

Sonnenkamp sent word to Frau Ceres that he had shot the black horse. He
smiled when he heard Pranken's report of his wife's state of feeling;
he avoided going to her, and he experienced a sort of grateful joy
towards destiny, that the large house rendered it possible for each of
the inmates to live by himself.

He went to see the Professorin; it was hard for him to meet her eye and
that of Eric, but it must be done; he must arm himself to look all men
boldly in the face. Was he a coward? had he not bid defiance to the
world, and was he now to be afraid of this tutor's family?

He entered the green cottage. He extended his hand neither to Eric nor
his mother, and only asked where the children were. He received the
answer that they had locked themselves in the library.

He said in a light way to Eric and his mother that he had been
especially desirous for them to know the whole; it would now be seen
who was faithful. Turning to Eric, he said:--

"I have shot the black horse, which you rode last night. What is mine
is mine."

He went quietly away; he stood some time near the library door, and
heard Roland and Manna talking, but without distinguishing a word.

He knocked twice, but there was no answer, and he turned away.
Returning to the villa, and mounting a horse, he rode to the
Cabinetsrath's villa, for he wished to give these people a piece of his
mind. And as he was riding along, it seemed to him as if the groom
behind him suddenly reined up, and then as if there were two following
him. Who is this unknown companion? He forced himself not to look
round. The horse trembled under the pressure of his legs. He reached
the country-house of the Cabinetsrath, stopped at the gate, and asked
after the minister's wife.

The gardener said that she was not there, and that she would not be