and half a regiment," said Wilfrid.

At this she gasped; she had risen her breath to deny or defy, and hung on
the top of it without a voice.

"Tell us--say, but do say--confess that you know Nagen to be a name of
mischief," Lena prayed her.

"I will say anything to prevent my brother from running into danger," Anna
rejoined.

"She is most foully accused by one whom we permitted to aspire to be of
our own family," said Karl.

"Yet you, Karl, have always been the first to declare her revengeful,"
Lena turned to him.

"Help, Karl, help me," said Anna.

"Yes!" cried her sister; "there you stand, and ask for help, meanest of
women! Do you think these men are not in earnest? Karl is to help you,
and you will not speak a word to save him from a grave before night, or
me from a lover all of blood."

"Am I to be the sacrifice?" said Anna.

"Whatever you call it, Wilfrid has spoken truth of you, and to none but
members of our family; and he had a right to say it, and you are bound
now to acknowledge it."

"I acknowledge that I love and serve my country, Lena."

"Not with a pure heart: you can't forgive. Insult or a wrong makes a
madwoman of you. Confess, Anna! You know well that you can't kneel to a
priest's ear, for you've stopped your conscience. You have pledged
yourself to misery to satisfy a spite, and you have not the courage to
ask for--" Lena broke her speech like one whose wits have been kindled.
"Yes, Karl," she resumed; "Anna begged you to help her. You will. Take
her aside and save her from being miserable forever. You do mean to fight
my Wilfrid?"

"I am certainly determined to bring him to repentance leaving him the
option of the way," said Karl.

Lena took her sullen sister by the arm.

"Anna, will you let these two men go--to slaughter? Look at them; they
are both our brothers. One is dearer than a brother to me, and, oh God! I
have known what it is to half-lose him. You to lose a lover and have to
go bound by a wretched oath to be the wife of a detestable short-sighted
husband! Oh, what an abominable folly!"

This epithet, 'short-sighted,' curiously forced in by Lena, was like a
shock of the very image of Nagen's needle features thrust against Anna's
eyes; the spasm of revulsion in her frame was too quick for her habitual
self-control.

At that juncture Weisspriess opened the door, and Anna's eyes met his.

"You don't spare me," she murmured to Lena.

Her voice trembled, and Wilfrid bent