should he trouble himself about where it comes from?" Lina
threw her veil over her face, and shut her eyes. The Justice now
explained the special reasons why neither he, nor his wife, should
become mixed up in these affairs.

"This captain-doctor is a dangerous man, dangerous in many respects."
This was his last remark, and they were silent until they reached home.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONFESSION OF TWO KINDS.

Otto von Pranken walked with his sister Bella up and down the garden.
Otto informed her that he had recommended Eric to Herr Sonnenkamp, but
that he was already very sorry for it.

Bella, who was always out of humor after she had made herself a victim
to the collation, turned now her ill humor against her brother, who had
introduced to her as a fitting guest one who was, or wished to be, a
menial, and above all, a menial of that Herr Sonnenkamp. With
mischievous satisfaction she added thereto, that Otto must take delight
in boldly leaping over difficulties, since he had recommended into the
family such an attractive person as this doctor--she made use of that
title as being inferior to that of captain. The natural consequence
would be that the daughter of the house would fall in love with her
brother's tutor.

"This Herr Dournay," she ended by saying, "is a very attractive person,
not merely because he is extraordinarily handsome, but yet more because
he possesses a romantic open-heartedness and honesty. Whether it is
genuine or assumed, at any rate, it tells, and particularly with a girl
of seventeen just out of a convent."

Otto answered good naturedly, that he had given his sister credit for a
less commonplace imagination; moreover, that Eric was an acknowledged
woman-hater, who would never love a real woman of flesh and blood. Yet
Pranken declared his intention of calling the next morning at the
villa, and telling Herr Sonnenkamp in confidence how very reluctant he
was to give the recommendation; that he should beseech him to dismiss
the applicant politely, for he might with propriety and justice say
that Eric would inoculate the boy with radical ideas; yes, that it
might further be said to Herr Sonnenkamp, that to receive Eric would be
displeasing at court. This last reason, he thought, would carry all
before it. Pranken had worked himself into the belief that to have a
secure position in the court-circle was the highest that Herr
Sonnenkamp co