al, Manna again began:--

"Now I can tell you what I meant, when I said that I would be an
Iphigenia; I wanted to sacrifice myself for you all, in order to take
the expiation from you."

"Oh, don't speak. What do these stories of the children in the wood, of
Orestes and Iphigenia, have to do with us? Orestes was happy, he could
consult the gods at Delphi; at that time the gods could be offended and
appeased; they were obliged to give a response--but now? we? Where, in
these times, is there a single mouth which gives a response in the name
of the gods? The Greeks had slaves too; and we? Now they tell us that
love has come into the world, and that all men are the children of God!
Is this love? And the priests blessed the marriage of a man who held
slaves--children of God as slaves,--and they baptized these children,
letting them still be slaves! Alas! I'm getting crazed! O, my youth! O,
my youth! Alas! I am still so young, and I must bear for a long, long
life-time--must bear this--everything! There's a blackness before my
eyes, a spot upon everything I see--all is black--black! At the time
when Claus was imprisoned--Children do not suffer for the crime of
their father; they can have no part in it, but they do suffer from it a
whole lifetime. Where is justice--help me, sister!--do help me!"

"I cannot, I do not comprehend it! O, it was that drove me out of the
sanctuary! I don't comprehend it!"

The brother and sister sat together in silence, until Roland suddenly
threw himself into Manna's arms, and hiding his head on her bosom,
said:--

"Manna, I wanted to kill myself, I could not bear it. Yesterday,
everything so beautiful--and here on your heart I cry--I must live--I
don't know what I am to do--I must live! Were the children to kill
themselves for their parent's guilt, that guilt would be made still
greater."

Again Roland leaned his head on the arm of the sofa, murmuring to
himself:--

"He did not carry it out at once, and now it will never be done."

"What do you mean?" asked Manna. Roland gave her a glassy stare, but he
kept it to himself that he had exhorted his father to put away all his
property, and that the father had led him to believe it should be done;
but now he seemed to see clearly that nothing of the kind would ever
take place. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and lay there
paralyzed as in an awful void, everything crushed and shattered within
him.

Manna understood how he felt, and kn