not
share the superstition?"

She neither answered, nor gave him her hand.

"May I walk with you? See, they are looking at us. Be calm!"

She walked by his side without raising her eyes.

"I'm waiting patiently for you to speak," said Anton in a low tone.

She looked into his face with her great eyes, but their glance was
changed.

"Is your father here?" she asked at length; her voice too was changed.

"No, he is at home," replied Anton. "Shall he come and see you?"

She shook her head silently, and Anton continued:

"Unfortunately your father quarreled with every one yesterday; with the
one-armed man, and with my father. He thought your father had already
returned from town, and so he did not come now. Your father must make
the first visit."

Thoma cast a bitter, wounded glance at Anton, who said in a soothing
tone, almost gaily indeed, that Thoma's father had been so fierce with
all the world because he had had to give up his daughter. A sad smile
passed over Thoma's face.

"I may go home with you, may I not?" asked Anton.

Thoma stood still. She laid her hand on her heart, and said:

"I am done with this. I have settled it here. Don't say that it is
pride, don't say that I did not love you;--or, if it is a comfort, you
may think so. Anton, I am walking with you for the last time. I am
speaking to you for the last time. Anton, it must, it _must_, be all
over between us. I cannot, I will not----I will not go into a house
where I do not bring honor. I will learn to bear my lonely life. Seek
for yourself some other happiness. Farewell!"

"Thoma, you thrust from you him on whom you should lean."

"I thrust no one away from me, and I will lean on no one."

They had reached the house. She entered quickly, leaving Anton standing
alone outside, but he was not long by himself, for Tobias and Peter
came up to him. They welcomed him heartily; for of course he would
testify, as they would, that the stone did not hit Vetturi, but that he
had fallen down on the sharp-pointed paving stones in terror at
Landolin's strong voice. They were very careful not to say that Vetturi
had thrown a stone first.

They said how fortunate it was that a man so highly thought of as Anton
had seen it all plainly; and Tobias added, smirkingly, that it was well
that the engagement was broken off for the present; for, as son-in-law,
his testimony would not have full weight. He further begged Anton to
instruct his comrade Fidelis. "Go