o your wishes."

"I know it," said Anton, in a low voice; "but I have now no choice
left."

"Well, then, do what you must," said the merchant, gloomily; "I will lay
no hinderance in your way; and I hope that after a few weeks you will be
able to consider the whole circumstances more calmly." Anton left the
room, and the merchant stood looking long with frowning brow at the
place his clerk had occupied.

Nor was Anton in a more congenial mood. "So cold, so inexorable!"
exclaimed he, as he reached his own room. He began to suspect that his
principal was more selfish and less kindly than he had hitherto
supposed. Many an expression of Fink's recurred to his mind, as well as
that evening when young Rothsattel, in his boyish conceit, had spoken
impertinently to the merchant. "Is it possible," thought he, "that that
rude speech should be unforgotten?" And his chief's keen, deep-furrowed
face lost inexpressibly by contrast with the fair forms of the noble
ladies. "I am not wrong," he cried to himself; "let him say what he
will, my views are more just than his, and henceforth my destiny shall
be to choose for myself the way in which I shall walk." He sat long in
the darkness, and his thoughts were gloomy as it; then he went to the
window to look down into the dark court below. A great white blossom
rose before him like a phantom. Striking a light, he saw that it was the
beautiful Calla out of Sabine's room. It hung down mournfully on its
broken stem. Sabine had had it placed there. This little circumstance
struck him as a mournful omen.

Meanwhile Sabine, taper in hand, entered her brother's room.
"Good-night, Traugott," nodded she. "Wohlfart has been with you this
evening; how long he staid!"

"He will leave us," replied the merchant, gloomily.

Sabine started and dropped her taper on the table. "For God's sake, what
has happened? Has Wohlfart said that he was going away?"

"I do not yet know it, but I see it coming step by step; and I can not,
and still less can you, do any thing to retain him. When he stood before
me here with glowing cheeks and trembling voice, pleading for a ruined
man, I found out what it was that lured him away."

"I do not understand you," said Sabine, looking full at her brother.

"He chooses to become the confidential friend of a decayed noble. A pair
of bright eyes draws him away from us: it seems to him a worthy object
of ambition to become Rothsattel's man of business. This intimacy with