azed for the moment, and would soon recover his reason again. The boy
seemed to have done so, or I would never have trusted him to come here
without me. I put him in Herbert's charge and felt perfectly sure that
all would be well. He could only have been in the city three or four
days at most, and well must he have spent his time."

She threw herself back in an easy chair, worn out and anxious as well as
angry, while the head forester walked up and down the room angrier than
ever now.

"And that's not the worst of it," he cried. "The worst is the game which
the rascal has been playing with me and my poor daughter since he came
here. My poor child has been running to Waldhofen day after day to give
what comfort and aid she could, and Willibald has always accompanied her
to comfort Marietta too--oh, its atrocious! Your model son has turned
out well, I must say, Regine."

"Perhaps you think I intend to shield him!" Regine answered spitefully.
"He shall stand before me, shall stand before us both, and speak. That's
what I have come for. He shall learn to know me!"

She rose as though ready now for the attack, and her hearer, who was
muttering angrily to himself, said aloud:

"He shall learn to know us both!"

Just then, in the middle of their excitement, the door opened, and the
poor, ill-treated fiance, Antonie von Schoenau entered the room quiet and
composed as ever, and said as she went toward her aunt:

"I heard from the servants of your unexpected arrival, dear aunt--I am
so glad to see you."

Instead of any answer or word of greeting from her aunt the same
question from both sides sounded in her ears.

"Where is Willibald?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes, he waited to give some direction to the
castle gardener; he does not know his mother is here."

"To the castle-gardener! Doubtless he wants some more roses," Frau von
Eschenhagen broke out afresh, while the father held out both his arms to
Toni and said, in a trembling voice:

"My child, my poor, deceived child, come to me. Come to your father's
arms."

He would have drawn his daughter into his arms, but Regine stepped
before him and said in a husky voice:

"Be composed, Toni, you will have a fearful blow from your false lover;
you will despise him and his deceptions from your very soul."

This sudden sympathy had in it something alarming, but fortunately Toni
had never been troubled with weak nerves; she released herself now from
this double emb