that she
could not speak. Fright seized the wretched mother a second time, and
the entire house was filled with her lamentations.

Ruben Klattaner and Veile's husband having now returned from their
fruitless search, were horrified on perceiving the change which Veile
had undergone. Being men, they did not weep. With staring eyes they
gazed upon the silent young woman, and beheld in her an apparition which
had been dealt with by God's visitation in a mysterious manner.

From this hour began the terrible penance of the young woman.

The impression which Veile's woeful condition made upon the people of
the _gasse_ was wonderful. Those who had danced with her that evening on
the wedding now first recalled her excited state. Her wild actions were
now first remembered by many. It must have been an "evil eye," they
concluded--a jealous, evil eye, to which her beauty was hateful. This
alone could have possessed her with a demon of unrest. She was driven by
this evil power into the dark night, a sport of these malicious
potencies which pursue men step by step, especially on such occasions.
The living God alone knows what she must have seen that night. Nothing
good, else one would not become dumb. Old legends and tales were
revived, each more horrible than the other. Hundreds of instances were
given to prove that this was nothing new in the _gasse_. Despite this
explanation, it is remarkable that the people did not believe that the
young woman was dumb. The most thought that her power of speech had been
paralyzed by some awful fright, but that with time it would be restored.
Under this supposition they called her "Veile the Silent."

There is a kind of human eloquence more telling, more forcible than the
loudest words, than the choicest diction--the silence of woman!
Ofttimes they cannot endure the slightest vexation, but some great,
heart-breaking sorrow, some pain from constant renunciation,
self-sacrifice, they suffer with sealed lips--as if, in very truth, they
were bound with bars of iron.

It would be difficult to fully describe that long "silent" life of the
young woman. It is almost impossible to cite more than one incident.
Veile accompanied her husband to his home, that house resplendent with
that gold and silver which had infatuated her. She was, to be sure, the
"first" woman in the _gasse_; she had everything in abundance. Indeed,
the world supposed that she had but little cause for complaint. "Must
one have ever