thought that it was her duty to
do so, and yet she was restrained by some feeling of feminine honour
from disgracing her niece,--by some feeling of feminine honour for
which she afterwards did penance with many inward flagellations of
the spirit.

"You must not be too hard upon her, Peter," said Madame Staubach with
a trembling voice.

"It is all very well saying that, and I do not think that I am the
man to be hard upon any one. But the fact is that this young woman
has got a lover, which is a thing of which I do not approve. I do not
approve of it at all, Madame Staubach. Some persons who stand very
high indeed in the city,--indeed I may say that none in Nuremberg
stand higher,--have asked me to-day whether I am engaged to marry
Linda Tressel. What answer am I to make when I am so asked, Madame
Staubach? One of our leading burgomasters was good enough to say
that he hoped it was so for the young woman's sake." Madame Staubach,
little as she knew of the world of Nuremberg, was well aware who was
the burgomaster. "That is all very well, my friend; but if it be
so that Linda will not renounce her lover,--who, by the by, is at
this moment locked up in prison, so that he cannot do any harm just
now,--why then, in that case, Madame Staubach, I must renounce her."
Having uttered these terrible words, Peter Steinmarc smoked away
again with all his fury.

A fortnight ago, had Peter Steinmarc ventured to speak to her in this
strain, Madame Staubach would have answered him with some feminine
pride, and would have told him that her niece was not a suppliant for
his hand. This she did not dare to do now. She was all at fault as
to facts, and did not know what the personages of Nuremberg might
be saying in respect to Linda. Were she to quarrel altogether with
Steinmarc, she thought that there would be left to her no means
of bringing upon Linda that salutary crushing which alone might
be efficacious for her salvation. She was therefore compelled to
temporise. Let Peter be silent for a week, and at the end of that
week let him speak again. If things could not then be arranged to his
satisfaction, Linda should be regarded as altogether a castaway.

"Very well, Madame Staubach. Then I will ask her for the last time
this day week." In coarsest sackcloth, and with bitterest ashes, did
Madame Staubach on that night do spiritual penance for her own sins
and for those of Linda Tressel.

This week had nearly passed to the duration o