that wouldn't do! anything but weakness, cried he
to himself. Why be afraid of this old sentimental spinster, Europe,
with her fine modes of speech! What hast thou done? Thou hast acted
with due reflection, and thou standest by what thou hast done. It is
well that there's nothing more to conceal, that everything is known.

He rose and went into the park. From a lofty acacia-tree one of the
main branches was hanging down, which had been broken, so that the tree
was like a bird that had lost one of its wings. The head-gardener told
Sonnenkamp that a gust of wind had swept over the park the night
before. Sonnenkamp nodded several times as he looked at the tree, and
then indulged in his inaudible whistle.

A gust of wind may break down a tree like this, but a man like him
stands firm.

He went farther on, and coming to the fruit-garden, saw the splendid
show of fruit upon the trees; glass bell-shaped vessels, filled with
water, were hung by wires underneath the different fruits, so that they
might be continually supplied with moisture, and be made to grow. All
this you can effect; you can direct nature, why not man? why not
destiny? He gazed at the huge fruits as if they could give him an
answer, but they remained dumb. He stood for a long time before one
tree, that had been trained to the shape of a coronet, and stared at
the branches.

In a spider's-web stretched between two twigs a fly was
struggling--whew! how convulsively it struggled! perhaps it moaned
also, but we couldn't hear it. Yes, high and noble fly, you have a fate
no different from that of the human fly. Everywhere spiders--yes,
spiders! And you are better off, you will be speedily eaten.

Sonnenkamp struck his forehead with his clenched fist: he was angry
with his brain, that led him into such subtile speculations.

He turned away and went back to his room. The best thing you can do, he
said to himself, is to make a speedy exit; then are your children free,
and you are free too. He took a revolver from the wall just as some one
knocked at the door.

"What's the matter? what do you want?" A groom gave his name, and
Sonnenkamp opened the door. The groom informed him that his black horse
rattled in the throat and foamed at the mouth; that he was sick, and
they could not tell what ailed him.

"Indeed?" cried Sonnenkamp. "Have you not walked the horse out for
exercise? Has any one ridden him?"

"Yes; the Herr Captain ordered the horse to be saddled th