Godfrey? It was Andrew, he said--it was Andrew--and lay down a dead man.
I implored Mr. Robert to come home for God's sake; he was quite beside
himself, and would not come. And I had not gone two hundred steps with
my men, when two more shots were fired behind us.

STEIN (_rises, beside himself_).

Mount your horse at once--ride till it drops dead--only be quick--get
soldiers from the town--surround the whole forest--catch that murderer's
band from the forester's house! You, Bastian, get quickly my Luettich
rifle, the one that's loaded--then call the workingmen--have them
armed--to--where was it, Moeller?

MOeLLER.

At the first bridge--in the Dell, scarcely ten minutes beyond the
forester's house.

PASTOR.

God grant that the worst may still be prevented!

STEIN (_stamps his foot_).

Bastian! Bastian! Why are you still standing there! Make haste!

[_Exit_ MOeLLER.]

And I--while--Bastian!

[BASTIAN _brings the rifle_. STEIN _tears it from him_.]

I am coming!
Robert, hold your own! I am coming!

[_Exeunt omnes_.]

ACT IV

_Twilight. The_ FORESTER'S _House._

SCENE I

WILKENS; SOPHY.

WILKENS.

Your husband has been dismissed. There is no doubt about that. And if he
desires to remain here he is going just the wrong way about it. Stein
certainly cannot afford to allow Ulrich to gain his point by defiance
and revolt. Godfrey now is forester. Well, Godfrey is a brutal fellow;
but here he is in the right. If now they should come together, your
husband and Godfrey? And each is going to treat the other as a poacher?
Or if Godfrey should come across Andrew once more? And if he does what
his father commanded him? Or if Andrew and young Stein come together?
Well? And viewed in the most charitable light, Ulrich is a dismissed
man, whom nobody will wish to employ after this open rebellion of which
he has been guilty. And what is then to become of you and your
children?

SOPHY.

I am sure you will not withdraw your aid from us. If you would only talk
to him once more!

WILKENS.

After the trump that he has played? Even if it were not for that, I
value my breath too much to preach to deaf ears. You and your children
must leave him. That I said to myself a little while ago, while on my
way, and made a solemn resolution to bring this about; and I came back
to tell you. Before you have a corpse or a murderer in the house--

SOPHY (_throws up her hands in terror_).

Matters surely cannot com