ting for her, but before she could address
him he said: "You have lost this," and throwing a parcel at her feet
made off over the fields towards the vineyards. Surprised she took up
the parcel. It was a silken kerchief unknown to her. As she unfolded it
a note fell out: "Beloved maiden! Be to-morrow on the Holtermann an
hour before sunset. I have much to say to you. Your father's happiness
is concerned in the matter." The note was signed "L." Angrily did
Klytia roll up the note. Was she the sort of girl with whom an
appointment could be made at evening in the loneliest cross road of the
whole neighbourhood? In her vexation she crumpled up the note and
placed it with the handkerchief in her satchel. "An hour before sunset!
Horrible! At the Holtermann--two hours from my father's house.
Dreadful;" and with flushed face she hurried along over the bridge and
through the town, till the steep Burgway caused her to slacken her
pace.

The Magister, on the evening when he quitted Lydia and her father,
found himself in a most painful state of mind. He felt triumphant, that
the beloved creature had suffered herself to be enclosed in his arms
without resistance, and his blood seethed when he thought of those
happy moments, and yet he was ashamed of his own weakness, and
uncomfortable at the expression of disgust, which Lydia had finally
shown. That the prisoners had pointed him out as their betrayer also
oppressed him. The bolt which he had shot from his safe hiding place,
had rejoiced him so long as the quarry did not lie bleeding before him.
Now that he saw heavy punishment facing the poor bound prisoners, the
excited zeal which had caused him to consider it a duty to avenge the
honor of God, suddenly disappeared. As an open accuser he could have
demanded their condemnation at any moment, but his conscience accused
him of having sped his deadly arrow as a hidden hunter concealing
himself and ever to be concealed. This word spoken by him in secret had
not relieved, but rather weighed down his soul. He could but notice
that on all sides he heard disapprobation of the secret denunciation,
nowhere a word of approval. He pictured himself as a criminal, who must
ever lie concealed, for if once but the end of the veil now thrown over
his actions was raised, the unreality of his position would be
inevitably disclosed, and he shuddered to think, how many people were
already possessed of his secret. Everywhere did he hear along the road
of