dignified aspect, might be an influential man, St. Leodogar, and his
own full purse and, with a heart throbbing anxiously, entered the street
with the closely muffled Katterle, to take the unpleasant walk to the
exasperated master and father.

The morning had been rife with important events to Biberli also. The
means of establishing a household, the conviction that it would be hard
for him to remain a contented man without the idol of his heart, and the
still more important one that it would not be wise to defer happiness
long, because, as the death of young Prince Hartmann had shown, and
Pater Benedictus made still more evident, the possibility of enjoying
the pleasures of life might be over far too speedily.

He had been within an ace of losing his Katterle forever, and through no
one's guilt save that of the man on whose truth and steadfastness she so
firmly relied. After Siebenburg's departure she had confessed with tears
to him, his master, and the monk, what had befallen her, and how she had
finally reached the Bindergasse and Sir Heinz Schorlin's lodgings.

When, during the conflagration, fearing punishment, she had fled, she
went first to the Dutzen pond. Determined to end her existence,
she reached the goal of her nocturnal and her life pilgrimage. The
mysterious black water with its rush-grown shore, where ducks quacked
and frogs croaked in the sultry gloom, lay before her in the terrible
darkness. After she had repeated several Paternosters, the thought that
she must die without receiving the last unction weighed heavily on her
soul. But this she could not help, and it seemed more terrible to stand
in the stocks, like the barber's widow, and be insulted, spit upon
by the people, than to endure the flames of purgatory, where so many
others--probably among them Biberli, who had brought her to this
pass--would be tortured with her.

So she laid down the bundle which--she did not know why herself--she had
brought with her, and took off her shoes as if she were going into
the water to bathe. Just at that moment she suddenly saw a red light
glimmering on the dark surface of the water. It could not be the
reflection of the fires of purgatory, as she had thought at first. It
certainly did not proceed from the forge on the opposite shore, now
closed, for its outlines rose dark and motionless against the moon.
No--a brief glance around verified it--the light came from the burning
of the convent. The sky was coloure