man, who in his truth and steadfastness meant
honestly by her. What Biberli requested her to do could be no heavy sin.

But the powers above seemed to be of a different opinion; for again a
dazzling glare of light illumined the room, and the crash and rattle of
the thunder of the angry heavens accompanied it with a deafening din.
Katterle shrieked aloud; it seemed as if the gates of hell had opened
before her, or the destruction of the world had begun.

Frantic with terror, she sprang back from the window, through which
the raindrops were already sprinkling her face. They cooled her flushed
cheeks and brought her back to reality. The offence she had just
committed was no trivial one. She, whom Herr Ortlieb, with entire
confidence, had placed in the service of the fair young girl whose
invalid mother could not care for her, had permitted herself to be
induced to persuade Eva, who was scarcely beyond childhood, to a
rendezvous with a man whom she represented to the inexperienced maiden
as a godly, virtuous knight, though she knew from Biberli how far the
latter surpassed his master in fidelity and steadfastness.

"Lead us not into temptation!" How often she had repeated the words
in the Lord's Prayer, and now she herself had become the serpent that
tempted into sin the innocent child whom duty should have commanded her
to guard.

No, no! The guilt for which she was threatened with punishment was by no
means small, and even if her earthly judge did not call her to account,
she would go to confession to-morrow and honestly perform the penance
imposed.

Moved by these thoughts, she gazed across the courtyard to the convent.
Just at that moment the lightning again flashed, the thunder pealed, and
she covered her face with her hands. When she lowered her arms she
saw on the roof of the nuns' granary, which adjoined the cow-stable,
a slender column of smoke, followed by a narrow tongue of flame, which
grew steadily brighter.

The lightning had set it on fire.

Sympathy for the danger and losses of others forced her own grief and
anxiety into the background and, without pausing to think, she slipped
on her shoes, snatched her shawl from the chest, and ran downstairs,
shouting: "The lightning has struck! The convent is burning!"

Just at that moment the door of the chamber occupied by the two sisters
opened, and Ernst Ortlieb, with tangled hair and pallid cheeks, came
toward her.

Within the room the dim light of the l