Without answering she left the room. Walther also lay down to sleep,
but Eckbert continued to walk up and down the room.

"Aren't human beings fools?" he finally asked himself. "I myself
induced my wife to tell her story, and now I regret this confidence!
Will he not perhaps misuse it? Will he not impart it to others? Will
he not perhaps--for it is human nature--come to feel a miserable
longing for our gems and devise plans to get them and dissemble his
nature?"

It occurred to him that Walther had not taken leave of him as
cordially as would perhaps have been natural after so confidential a
talk. When the soul is once led to suspect, it finds confirmations of
its suspicions in every little thing. Then again Eckbert reproached
himself for his ignoble distrust of his loyal friend, but he was
unable to get the notion entirely out of his mind. All night long he
tossed about with these thoughts and slept but little.

Bertha was sick and could not appear for breakfast. Walther seemed
little concerned about it, and furthermore he left the knight in a
rather indifferent manner. Eckbert could not understand his conduct.
He went in to see his wife--she lay in a severe fever and said that
her story the night before must have excited her in this manner.

After that evening Walther visited his friend's castle but rarely, and
even when he did come he went away again after a few trivial words.
Eckbert was exceedingly troubled by this behavior; to be sure, he
tried not to let either Bertha or Walther notice it, but both of them
must surely have been aware of his inward uneasiness.

Bertha's sickness grew worse and worse. The doctor shook his head--the
color in her cheeks had disappeared, and her eyes became more and more
brilliant.

One morning she summoned her husband to her bedside and told the maids
to withdraw.

"Dear husband," she began, "I must disclose to you something which has
almost deprived me of my reason and has ruined my health, however
trivial it may seem to be. Often as I have told my story to you, you
will remember that I have never been able, despite all the efforts I
have made, to recall the name of the little dog with which I lived so
long. That evening when I told the story to Walther he suddenly said
to me when we separated: 'I can readily imagine how you fed the little
Strohmi.' Was that an accident? Did he guess the name, or did he
mention it designedly? And what, then, is this man's connection with