e Staubach with
him, and she had not ventured to say a word in excuse for her niece.
She had promised that the severity should be at any rate forthcoming,
and, if possible, the discipline. As for the repentance, that, she
said meekly, must be left in the hands of God. "Ah!" said Peter, in
his bitterness, "I would make her repent in sackcloth and ashes!"
Then Madame Staubach had again promised that the sackcloth and
ashes should be there. She remembered all this as she thought of
relenting,--as she perceived that to relent would be sweet to her,
and she made herself rigid with fresh resolves. If the man's coming
had been accidental, why had not the story been told to her? She
could understand nothing of that forgiveness of which Linda had
spoken; and had not Linda confessed that she loved this man? Would
she not rather have hated him who had so intruded upon her, had there
been real intrusion in the visit?

"You have done that," she said, "which would destroy the character of
any girl in Nuremberg."

"If you mean, aunt Charlotte, that the thing which has happened would
destroy the character of any girl in Nuremberg, it may perhaps be
true. If so, I am very unfortunate."

"Have you not told me that you love him?"

"I do;--I do;--I do! One cannot help one's love. To love as I do is
another misfortune. There is nothing but misery around me. You have
heard the whole truth now, and you may as well spare me further
rebuke."

"Do you not know how such misery should be met?" Linda shook her
head. "Have you prayed to be forgiven this terrible sin?"

"What sin?" said Linda, again almost screaming in her energy.

"The terrible sin of receiving this man in the absence of your
friends."

"It was no sin. I am sinful, I know,--very; no one perhaps more so.
But there was no sin there. Could I help his coming? Aunt Charlotte,
if you do not believe me about this, it is better that we should
never speak to each again. If so, we must live apart."

"How can that be? We cannot rid ourselves of each other."

"I will go anywhere,--into service, away from Nuremberg,--where you
will. But I will not be told that I am a liar."

And yet Madame Staubach was sure that Linda had lied. She thought
that she was sure. And if so,--if it were the case that this young
woman had planned an infamous scheme for receiving her lover on a
Sunday morning;--the fact that it was on a Sunday morning, and that
the hour of the Church service had been used