to repeat to her aunt.

"But, Herr Molk, sir, if I do not love Peter Steinmarc--if I hate
him--?"

"Oh, my dear, my dear! This is a terrible thing. There is not such
another ne'er-do-well in all Nuremberg as Ludovic Valcarm. Support
a wife! He cannot support himself. And it will be well if he
does not die in a jail. Oh dear! oh dear! For your father's sake,
fraulein--for your father's sake, I would go any distance to save you
from this. Your father was a good man, and a credit to the city. And
Peter Steinmarc is a good man."

"But I need not marry Peter Steinmarc, Herr Molk."

"You cannot do better, my dear,--indeed you cannot. See what your
aunt says. And remember, my dear, that you should submit yourself to
your elders and your betters. Peter is not so old. He is not old at
all. I was one of the city magistrates when Peter was a little boy. I
remember him well. And he began life in your father's office. Nothing
can be more respectable than he has been. And then Ludovic Valcarm!
oh dear! If you ask my advice, I should counsel you to accept Peter
Steinmarc."

There was nothing more to be got from Herr Molk. And with this
terrible recommendation still sounding in her ears, Linda sadly made
her way back from the Egidien Platz to the Schuett island.

CHAPTER IX

Linda Tressel, as she returned home to the house in the Schuett
island, became aware that it was necessary for her to tell to her
aunt all that had passed between herself and Herr Molk. She had been
half stunned with grief as she left the magistrate's house, and for
a while had tried to think that she could keep back from Madame
Staubach at any rate the purport of the advice that had been given to
her. And as she came to the conclusion that this would be impossible
to her,--that it must all come out,--various wild plans flitted
across her brain. Could she not run away without returning to the red
house at all? But whither was she to run, and with whom? The only one
who would have helped her in this wild enterprise had been sent to
prison by that ill-conditioned old man who had made her so miserable!
At this moment, there was no longer any hope in her bosom that she
should save herself from being a castaway; nay, there was hardly a
wish. There was no disreputable life so terrible to her thoughts, no
infamy so infamous in idea to her, as would be respectability in the
form of matrimony with Peter Steinmarc. And now, as she walked along
painfully,