pot. You look
so fresh, so animated! I have never seen you so much so. Herr von
Pranken," turning to him, "you see how Manna has freed herself, and I
have your promise to give up the matter of which we have been speaking;
have I not?"

Pranken made no answer.

"I did not know that you were here, Herr von Pranken," began Manna,
"but now, now it is best that it is so."

"Certainly," said Sonnenkamp decidedly. "You can have nothing to say to
me which our faithful friend may not hear. Sit down."

He took, according to his wont, a little peg of wood, and began to
whittle.

Manna did not sit down: with her hand on the back of a chair, she
said,--

"Herr von Pranken, I wish to prove to you my gratitude for your
faithful"--.

"That you will, that you can," interrupted her father, looking up from
his peg. "It is well. I need joy, I need rest, I need serenity. You are
right. A cordial would now be doubly refreshing. Give our friend your
hand now."

"I give it in farewell."

"In farewell?" cried Sonnenkamp, making a deep cut in the peg. He went
up to Manna, and caught her hand.

"Pray, father," she interrupted. "Herr von Pranken, you are a nobleman
whom I honor and esteem. You have proved yourself loyal to my father:
as his child, I shall value you, and remember you with gratitude;
but"--

"But what?" demanded Sonnenkamp.

"I owe it to you to speak the truth. I cannot become your wife. I love
Herr Dournay, and he loves me. We are one; and no power of earth or
heaven can part us."

"_You_ and the teacher, that Huguenot, that word-huckster, that
hypocrite? I will strangle him with my own hands, the thief"--

"Father," returned Manna, drawing herself up to her full height, while
the heroic courage which shone from her eyes made her appear taller and
stronger than she was in reality,--"father, Herr Dournay is a teacher
and a Huguenot. It is only your anger that speaks the rest."

"My anger shall speak no more. You do not know me yet. I stake my life
on this"--

"That you will not do, father. We children have enough to bear
already."

A cry, horrible as that of some monster, burst from Sonnenkamp's
breast.

Turning to Pranken, he cried,--

"Leave us! Herr von Pranken. Leave me alone with her!"

"No," was the reply. "I will not leave you alone with your daughter. I
have loved her. I have a right to protect her."

Sonnenkamp supported himself by grasping the table. A vertigo seemed to
seize him, and he cri