eir stay brief, for the drawbridge leading to
the tower must be raised when darkness gathered.

The young girls found their father, absorbed in grief as if utterly
crushed, seated at a table on which stood a leaden inkstand with several
sheets of paper. He still held the pen in his hand.

He received his daughters with the exclamation, "You poor, poor
children!" But when Els tried to tell him what had given her so much
pleasure, he interrupted her to accuse himself, with deep sorrow, of
having again permitted sudden passion to master him. Probably this was
the last time; such experiences would cool even the hottest blood. Then
he began to relate what had induced him to raise his hand against
the tailor, and as, in doing so, he recalled the insolent hypocrite's
spiteful manner, he again flew into so violent a rage that the blow
which he dealt the table made the ink splash up and soil both the
paper lying beside it and his own dress, still faultlessly neat even in
prison. This caused fresh wrath, and he furiously crushed the topmost
sheet, already half covered with writing, and hurled it on the floor.

Not until Els stooped to pick it up did he calm himself, saying, with
a shrug of the shoulders, "Who can remain unmoved when the whirlwind
of despair seizes him? When a swarm of hornets attacks a horse, and it
rears, who wonders? And I--What stings and blows has Fate spared me?"
Els ventured to speak soothingly to him, and remind him of God, and
the saints to whom he had made such generous offerings in building the
convent; but this awakened an association, and he asked if it were true
that Eva had refused to take the veil.

She made a silent gesture of assent, expecting another outburst of
anger; but her father only shook his head sorrowfully, clasped her right
hand in both his, and said sadly: "Poor, poor child! But she, she--your
mother--would probably----The last words her dear lips bestowed upon us
concerned you, child, and I believe their meaning----"

Here the warden interrupted him to remind the girls that it was time to
depart; but whilst Els was begging the man for a brief delay, Herr Ernst
looked first at the paper and writing materials, then at his daughters,
and added with quiet decision: "Before you go, you must hear that, in
spite of everything, I did not wholly lose courage, but began to act."

"That is right, dear father," exclaimed Els, and told him briefly and
quickly what the Council had decided, ho