sed that a letter should be at once
sent to Madame Staubach, explaining plainly that Linda had run away
from her marriage with Steinmarc, and stating that for the present
she was safe and comfortable with her old friend. It could hardly
be said that Linda assented to this, because she accepted all that
was done for her as a child might accept it. But she knelt upon the
floor with her head upon her friend's lap, kissing Fanny's hands,
and striving to murmur thanks. Oh, if they would leave her there
for three days, so that she might recover something of her strength!
"They shall leave you for three weeks, Linda," said the other.
"Madame Staubach is not the Emperor, that she is to have her own way
in everything. And as for Peter--"

"Pray, don't talk of him;--pray, do not," said Linda, shuddering.

But all this comfort was at an end about seven o'clock on that
evening. The second train in the day from Nuremberg was due at
Augsburg at six, and Max Bogen, though he said nothing on the subject
to Linda, had thought it probable that some messenger from the former
town might arrive in quest of Linda by that train. At seven there
came another little carriage up to the door, and before her name
could be announced, Madame Staubach was standing in Fanny Bogen's
parlour. "Oh, my child!" she said. "Oh, my child, may God in His
mercy forgive my child!" Linda cowered in a corner of the sofa and
did not speak.

"She hasn't done anything in the least wrong," said Fanny; "nothing
on earth. You were going to make her marry a man she hated, and so
she came away. If father had done the same to me, I wouldn't have
stayed an hour." Linda still cowered on the sofa, and was still
speechless.

Madame Staubach, when she heard this defence of her niece, was hardly
pushed to know in what way it was her duty to answer it. It would be
very expedient, of course, that some story should be told for Linda
which might save her from the ill report of all the world,--that some
excuse should be made which might now, instantly, remove from Linda's
name the blight which would make her otherwise to be a thing scorned,
defamed, useless, and hideous; but the truth was the truth, and even
to save her child from infamy Madame Staubach would not listen to a
lie without refuting it. The punishment of Linda's infamy had been
deserved, and it was right that it should be endured. Hereafter, as
facts came to disclose themselves, it would be for Peter Steinmarc to
sa