pity for every one of them!"

The knight's blood boiled at the words, but they strengthened his
courage. He felt relieved from any consideration for these people, not
one of whom, except the poor woman shedding such burning tears, had
given him occasion to return love for love. Had they flowed only for
the lost wealth, and not for him and the grief he caused Isabella, they
would not have seemed "a pity" to the old countess.

Siebenburg's breath came quicker.

The gratitude he owed his father-in-law certainly did not outweigh the
humiliations with which he, his weak wife, and ill-natured mother-in-law
had embittered his existence.

Even now the old gentleman barely vouchsafed him a greeting. After he
had asked about his son, called himself a ruined man, and upbraided the
knight with insulting harshness because his brothers--the news had been
brought to him a short time before--were the robbers who had seized his
goods, and the old countess had chimed in with the exclamation, "They
are all just fit for the executioner's block!" Seitz could restrain
himself no longer; nay, it gave him actual pleasure to show these hated
people what he had done, on his part, to add to their embarrassments. He
was no orator, but now resentment loosened his tongue, and with swift,
scornful words he told Herr Casper that, as the son-in-law of a house
which liked to represent itself as immensely rich, he had borrowed from
others what--he was justified in believing it--had been withheld through
parsimony. Besides, his debts were small in comparison with the vast
sums Herr Casper had lavished in maintaining the impoverished estates
of the Rotterbach kindred. Like every knight whose own home was not
pleasant, he sometimes gambled; and when, yesterday, ill luck pursued
him and he lost the estate of Tannenreuth, he sincerely regretted the
disaster, but it could not be helped.

Terror and rage had sealed the old countess's lips, but now they parted
in the hoarse cry: "You deserve the wheel and the gallows, not the
honourable block!" and her daughter, Rosalinde Eysvogel, repeated in a
tone of sorrowful lamentation, "Yes, the wheel and the gallows."

A scornful laugh from Siebenburg greeted the threat, but when Herr
Casper, white as death and barely able to control his voice, asked
whether this incredible confession was merely intended to frighten the
women, and the knight assured him of the contrary, he groaned aloud:
"Then the old house must s