.

HERR VON DONNIGES. Here, we must carry her out.

[Tears down curtains from windows and rolls Helene in the
curtains.]

LANDLORD. You must pay for those!

HERR VON DONNIGES. Name the amount!

LANDLORD. Why, they cost me----

HERR VON DONNIGES. Never mind. Charge them to the Jew. Here, help carry
her--this daughter who has ruined me!

LANDLORD. You act like a man who might do the task of ruining yourself.

[Helene starts to rise. Her father fells her to the floor with the
flat of his hand. Seizes her and with the help of the mother and
landlord carries her out. Exit, with Hilda following behind, mildly
wringing her hands.]

HILDA VON DONNIGES. Oh, why did she bring this disgrace upon us?

* * * * *

ACT FIVE

_Scene:_ Room in house of Herr Von Donniges.

[Furnishings are rich and old-fashioned, as becomes the house of a
collector of revenue. Helene pacing the room talking to
maidservant, who sits quietly sewing.]

HELENE. It is only a week since I saw Lassalle--only a week. Yet my poor
head says it is a year, and my heart says a lifetime. For six days my
father kept me locked in that little room in the tower, where not even
you were allowed to enter. The butler silently pushed food in at the
door and as silently went away. Once each day at exactly noon my father
came and solemnly asked, "Do you renounce Lassalle?" and I as solemnly
answered, "I will yet be the wife of Lassalle." But since yesterday,
when I wrote the letter at their dictation to Lassalle telling him that
he was free, and that I was soon to marry Prince Yanko Racowitza, I feel
a load lifted from my heart. How queer! Perhaps it is because I am
relieved of the pressure of my parents and have been given my freedom!

MAID. Not quite freedom; for see--there is a guard pacing back and forth
at the door!

[Guard is seen through the window pacing his beat.]

HELENE. Oh, freedom is only comparative--but now you are with me. I
needed some one to whom I could talk. Yet I did not renounce Lassalle
until he failed to rescue me--he did not even answer my letter----

MAID. Possibly he did not receive it!

HELENE. But you bribed the porter!

MAID. True; but some one may have paid him more!

HELENE. Listen, do you still think it possible that Lassalle has not
forgotten me?

MAID. Not only possible, but probable. A man of his intellect would
guess that the lette