t has happened?" she cried in terror; but her father
answered in a hollow tone:

"For the sake of your noble sister, to whom I pledged my word, I will
force myself to remain calm. But look at her! Her poor heart must be
like a graveyard, for she was doomed to bury what she held dearest. And
who," he continued furiously, so carried away by grief and indignation
as to be unmindful of his promise to maintain his composure, "who is to
blame for it all, save you and your boundless imprudence?"

Eva, with uplifted hands, tried to explain how, unconscious of her acts,
she had walked in her sleep down the stairs and out of the house, but he
imperiously cut her short with:

"Silence! I know all. My daughter gave a worthless tempter the right
to expect the worst from her. You, whom we deemed the ornament of this
house, whose purity hitherto was stainless, are to blame if people
passing on the street point at it! Alas! alas! Our honour, our ancient,
unsullied name!"

Groaning aloud, the father struck his brow with his clenched hand; but
when Els rose and passed her arm around his shoulders to speak words
of consolation, Eva, who hitherto had vainly struggled for words, could
endure no more.

"Whoever says that of me, my father," she exclaimed with flashing eyes;
scarcely able to control her voice, "has opened his ears to slander;
and whoever terms Heinz Schorlin a worthless tempter, is blinded by a
delusion, and I call him to his face, even were it my own father, to
whom I owe gratitude and respect--"

But here she stopped and extended her arms to keep off the deeply
angered man, for he had started forward with quivering lips, and--she
perceived it clearly--was already under the spell of one of the terrible
fits of fury which might lead him to the most unprecedented deeds.
Els, however, had clung to him and, while holding him back with all her
strength, cried out in a tone of keen reproach, "Is this the way you
keep your promise?"

Then, lowering her voice, she continued with loving entreaty: "My dear,
dear father, can you doubt that she was asleep, unconscious of her acts,
when she did what has brought so much misery upon us?"

And, interrupting herself, she added eagerly in a tone of the firmest
conviction: "No, no, neither shame nor misery has yet touched you, my
father, nor the poor child yonder. The suspicion of evil rests on me,
and me alone, and if any one here must be wretched it is I."

Then Herr Ernst, regaini