ish; in moments of great happiness it wants to hear nothing of the
sorrows of others, and refuses to believe them.

I was compelled to mar the joy of the proud, loving wife; and when
Bertha too was filled with alarm, she pitied Annette even more than her
brother. She thought it particularly hard that Annette, who was so good
and self-sacrificing, should again and again be overwhelmed with
sorrow. She believed that Richard had loved Annette before the death of
her husband, and that his repentance and severity towards himself
caused him to be so bitter to her. He struggled with his love for the
woman on whom his eyes had rested with admiration at a time when such
admiration was sinful.

On the other hand her natural good humor and buoyancy of spirits made
her confident that Richard would surely soon be saved. Richard always
was a lucky fellow. She remembered, from childhood, that once while I
was coming down the river on a raft with my raftsmen, Richard stood on
shore, and, crying "Father!" rushed out into the stream till the water
came up to his chin. Balbina ran to the rescue, and, when he was safely
ashore he laughed heartily. He had not been conscious of danger or
fear.

While Bertha recalled all this, I became more tranquil, and when she
expressed her confident hope that we would not live to see another war,
I heartily agreed with her.

CHAPTER VII.

It was well that I had come up to the capital, for Parliament had been
convoked, in order to consider the new constitution, or rather, the
question of giving in our adhesion to the North German Confederation.

I scarcely heard the speeches, and did not have the strength to take
the floor myself.

When a vote was at last reached, it went hard with me to vote "aye." In
spite of my joy that there was now a United Germany, I had labored too
long for the establishment of German landed rights, to content myself
without their being embodied in laws.

I was deeply moved by a remark of my old and faithful colleague,
Loedinger: "I fear that in the new German constitution, it will only be
too evident that the movement which brought it about, was not initiated
by the people."

We heard from Annette and Wolfgang, who wrote that they had at last
obtained a clue to aid them in the search for Richard. He had, for a
long time, been dragged about the country, and had then been sent to
the Isles d'Hyeres.

Now, for the first time, I learne