y whether he would take such a woman for his wife; but whether he
took her or whether he rejected her, it could not be well that Linda
should be screened by a lie from any part of the punishment which
she had deserved. Let her go seven times seven through the fire, if
by such suffering there might yet be a chance for her poor desolate
half-withered soul.

"Done nothing wrong, Fanny Heisse!" said Madame Staubach, who, in
spite of her great fatigue, was still standing in the middle of the
room. "Do you say so, who have become the wife of an honest
God-fearing man?"

But Fanny was determined that she would not be put down in her own
house by Madame Staubach. "It doesn't matter whose wife I am," she
said, "and I am sure Max will say the same as I do. She hasn't
done anything wrong. She made up her mind to come away because she
wouldn't marry Peter Steinmarc. She came here in company with her own
young man, as I used to come with Max. And as soon as she got here
she sent word up to us, and here she is. If there's anything very
wicked in that, I'm not religious enough to understand it. But I tell
you what I can understand, Madame Staubach,--there is nothing on
earth so horribly wicked as trying to make a girl marry a man whom
she loathes, and hates, and detests, and abominates. There, Madame
Staubach; that's what I've got to say; and now I hope you'll stop and
have supper with Max and Linda and me."

Linda felt herself to be blushing in the darkness of her corner as
she heard this excuse for her conduct. No; she had not made the
journey to Augsburg with Ludovic in such fashion as Fanny had,
perhaps more than once, travelled the same route with her present
husband. Fanny had not come by night, without her father's knowledge,
had not escaped out of a window; nor had Fanny come with any such
purpose as had been hers. There was no salve to her conscience in all
this, though she felt very grateful to her friend, who was fighting
her battle for her.

"It is not right that I should argue the matter with you," said
Madame Staubach, with some touch of true dignity. "Alas, I know that
which I know. Perhaps you will allow me to say a word in privacy to
this unfortunate child."

But Max Bogen had not paid his wife a false compliment for
cleverness. She perceived at once that the longer this interview
between the aunt and her niece could be delayed,--the longer that it
could be delayed, now that they were in each other's company,--