ng his self-control, drew back from Eva, but the
latter, as if fairly frantic, exclaimed: "Do you want to drive me out of
my senses by your mysterious words and accusations? What, in the name
of all the saints, has happened that can plunge my Els into misery and
shame?"

"Into misery and shame," repeated her father in a hollow tone, throwing
himself into a chair, where he sat motionless, with his face buried in
his hands, while Els told her sister what had occurred when she went
down into the entry to speak to the knight.

Eva listened to her story, fairly gasping for breath. For one brief
moment she cherished the suspicion that Cordula had not acted from pure
sympathy, but to impose upon Heinz Schorlin a debt of gratitude which
would bind him to her more firmly. Yet when she heard that her father
had given back his daughter's ring to Herr Casper Eysvogel and broken
his child's betrothal she thought of nothing save her sister's grief
and, sobbing aloud, threw herself into Els's arms.

The girls held each other in a close embrace until the first flash of
lightning and peal of thunder interrupted the conversation.

The father and daughters had been so deeply agitated that they had
not heard the storm rising outside, and the outbreak of the tempest
surprised them. The peal of thunder, which so swiftly followed the
lightning, also startled them and when, soon after, a second one shook
the house with its crashing, rattling roar, Herr Ernst went out to wake
the chief packer. But old Endres was already keeping watch among the
wares entrusted to him and when, after a brief absence, the master of
the house returned, he found Eva again clasped in her sister's arms,
and saw the latter kissing her brow and eyes as she tenderly strove to
comfort her.

But Eva seemed deaf to her soothing words. Els, her faithful Els, was no
longer the betrothed bride of her Wolff; her great, beautiful happiness
was destroyed forever. On the morrow all Nuremberg would learn that Herr
Casper had broken his son's betrothal pledge, because his bride, for the
sake of a tempter, Sir Heinz Schorlin, had failed to keep her troth with
him.

How deeply all this pierced Eva's heart! how terrible was the torture
of the thought that she was the cause of this frightful misfortune!
Dissolved in an agony of tears, she entreated the poor girl to forgive
her; and Els did so willingly, and in a way that touched her father to
the very depths of his heart. How goo