e to, but I'm not well. I'm so chilly, I think I'll go
right to bed."

Thoma wanted to go into the house too, but her mother refused, and
insisted that she should remain with her father.

Her mother went in, and Thoma felt that she now ought to talk with her
father; but she couldn't think of a word to say. Every pleasant word
appeared to her to be a lie, and the bitterness of her fate lay in the
fact that there was a lie to contend with. It distressed her to pass
her father by, at home and in the field, in silence, or with only a
cold greeting, and now to sit so speechless, and force him to think of
their trouble; but she could not do otherwise.

Landolin said that her mother was more ill than she was willing to
admit, and that it was evidently hard for her to keep up. Thoma tried
to quiet his fears; but her words sounded as hard as stone, when he
said, "But that is a matter where the doctor can help us."

"And I know something that no doctor can prescribe, which would make
your mother strong and well again."

Landolin had to wait long before Thoma asked what it could be, and he
explained that the joy which her wedding with Anton would give her
mother was the remedy. Thoma said, in a hollow voice,

"That can never be, no more than"--she stopped suddenly.

"Well! No more than what?"

Thoma gave no answer, and Landolin knew that she would have said--"No
more than Vetturi can live again."

A well-known voice suddenly broke in upon the silence which followed.

"Good evening to you both!"

Anton stood before them. Landolin arose and held out his hand. Thoma
kept her seat, and wrapping both arms in her apron, said only "Good
evening."

Landolin made room for Anton beside him, and told Thoma to come and sit
on the bench too. But she replied, "I am quite comfortable where I am;
besides, I must go in to mother. She is not at all well."

"You will stay here," said Landolin, in his old commanding voice. Then
he explained to Anton that he would have liked to go to see his father,
but--and it was hard for him to say this--he did not wish to be
obtrusive; and so he waited for people to come to see him. He thanked
Anton for his favorable testimony at the trial, and said, that he was
glad that he had kept his conscience so clear.

"When I saw you standing there so resolutely, and heard you speak so
firmly, I loved you twice as much as before," he added.

Anton understood what it meant for the proud and arrogant Landol