ously threatened by the citadel. Among the men and
women who voluntarily flocked to the work by thousands, were Adam, the
smith, his apprentices, and Ruth. The former, with his journeymen,
wielded the spade under the direction of a skilful engineer, the girl,
with other women, braided gabions from willow-rods.

She had lived through sorrowful days. Self-reproach, for having by her
hasty fit of temper caused the father's outburst of anger to his son,
constantly tortured her.

She had learned to hate the Spaniards as bitterly as Adam; she knew that
Ulrich was following a wicked, criminal course, yet she loved him, his
image had been treasured from childhood, unassailed and unsullied, in the
most sacred depths of her heart. He was all in all to her, the one person
destined for her, the man to whom she belonged as the eye does to the
face, the heart to the breast.

She believed in his love, and when she strove to condemn and forget him,
it seemed as if she were alienating, rejecting the best part of-herself.

A thousand voices told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did
in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect. She
did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become his,
expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after winter.
Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief of her
loving soul. Then, when the inevitable had happened they would be one in
their aspirations for virtue, and the son could no longer close his heart
against the father, nor the father shut his against the son.

The child's vivid imagination was still alive in the maiden. Every
leisure hour she had thought of her lost playfellow, every day she had
talked to his father about him, asking whether he would rather see him
return as a famous artist, a skilful smith, or commander of a splendid
ship.

Handsome, strong, superior to other men, he had always appeared. Now she
found him following evil courses, on the path to ruin; yet even here he
was peerless among his comrades; whatever stain rested upon him, he
certainly was not base and mean.

As a child, she always had transformed him into a splendid fairy-prince,
but she now divested him of all magnificence, seeing him attired in plain
burgher dress, appear humbly before his father and stand beside him at
the forge. She dreamed that she was by his side, and before her stood the
table she covered with food for him, a