to
secure Ernst Ortlieb's liberation and recommending the girls to the
protection of one of the watchmen, Eva's cheeks flushed; for a messenger
of the Council had just approached the others, and she heard him utter
the name of Sir Heinz Schorlin and his follower Walther Biberli. Els
listened, too, but whilst her sister in embarrassment pressed her hand
upon her heart, she frankly asked the city clerk what had befallen the
knight and his squire, who was betrothed to her maid. She heard that at
the last meeting of the Council an order had been issued for Biberli's
arrest.

His name must have been brought up during the discussions of the
slanders which had so infamously pursued the Ortlieb sisters, but she
could not enquire how or in what connection, for the sun was already low
in the western sky, and if the girls wished to see their father there
was no time to lose.

Yet, though Katterle had just said that Countess von Montfort was
waiting outside in her great sedan-chair for the young ladies, they were
still detained, for they would not leave the Town Hall without thanking
the city clerk and saying farewell to him. He was still near, but the
captain of the city soldiers had drawn him aside and was telling him
something which seemed to permit no delay, and induced the old gentleman
to glance at the sisters repeatedly.

Eva did not notice it; for Biberli's arrest, which probably had some
connection with Heinz and herself, had awakened a series of anxious
thoughts associated with her lover and his faithful follower. Els
troubled herself only about the events occurring in her immediate
vicinity, and felt perfectly sure that the captain's communications
referred not only to the four itinerant workmen and the three women who
had just been led across the courtyard to the "Hole," and to whom the
speaker pointed several times, but especially to her and her sister.

When the city clerk at last turned to them again, he remarked carelessly
that a disagreeable mob in front of the Ortlieb mansion had been
dispersed, and then, with urgent cordiality, invited the two girls to
spend the night under the protection of his old housekeeper. When they
declined, he assured them that measures would be taken to guard them
from every insult. He had something to tell their uncle, and the
communication appeared to permit no delay, for with a haste very unusual
in the deliberate old gentleman he left the two sisters with a brief
farewell.

M