as your aunt bids you, I must tell your aunt everything."
"There is nothing to tell."
"Linda!"
"I have done nothing. I can't help any young man. He is only over there because of the brewery." She had told all her secret now. "He is nothing to me, Herr Steinmarc, and if you choose to tell aunt Charlotte, you must. I shall tell aunt Charlotte that if she will let me keep out of your way, I will promise to keep out of his. But if you come, then – then – then – I don't know what I may do." After that she escaped, and went away back into the kitchen, while Peter Steinmarc stumped up again to his own room.
"Well, my friend, how has it gone?" said Madam Staubach, entering Peter's chamber, at the door of which she had knocked.
"I have found out the truth," said Peter, solemnly.
"What truth?" Peter shook his head, not despondently so much as in dismay. The thing which he had to tell was so very bad! He felt it so keenly, not on his own account so much as on account of his friend! All that was expressed by the manner in which Peter shook his head. "What truth have you found out, Peter? Tell me at once," said Madame Staubach.
"She has got a – lover."
"Who? Linda! I do not believe it."
"She has owned it. And such a lover!" Whereupon Peter Steinmarc lifted up both his hands.
"What lover? Who is he? How does she know him, and when has she seen him? I cannot believe it. Linda has never been false to me."
"Her lover is – Ludovic Valcarm."
"Your cousin?"
"My cousin Ludovic – who is a good-for-nothing, a spendthrift, a fellow without a florin, a fellow that plays cards on Sundays."
"And who fears neither God nor Satan," said Madame Staubach. "Peter Steinmarc, I do not believe it. The child can hardly have spoken to him."
"You had better ask her, Madame Staubach." Then with some exaggeration Peter told Linda's aunt all that he did know, and something more than all that Linda had confessed; and before their conversation was over they had both agreed that, let these tidings be true in much or in little, or true not at all, every exertion should be used to force Linda into the proposed marriage with as little delay as possible.
"I overheard him speaking to her out of the street window, when they thought I was out," said the town-clerk in a whisper before he left Madame Staubach. "I had to come back home for the key of the big chest, and they never knew that I had been in the house." This had been one of the occasions on which Linda had been addressed, and had wanted breath to answer the bold young man who had spoken to her.
CHAPTER IV
On the following morning, being Sunday morning, Linda positively refused to get up at the usual hour, and declared her intention of not going to church. She was, she said, so ill that she could not go to church. Late on the preceding evening Madame Staubach, after she had left Peter Steinmarc, had spoken to Linda of what she had heard, and it was not surprising that Linda should have a headache on the following morning. "Linda," Madame Staubach said, "Peter has told me that Ludovic Valcarm has been – making love to you. Linda, is this true?" Linda had been unable to say that it was not true. Her aunt put the matter to her in a more cunning way than Steinmarc had done, and Linda felt herself unable to deny the charge. "Then let me tell you, that of all the young women of whom I ever heard, you are the most deceitful," continued Madame Staubach.
"Do not say that, aunt Charlotte; pray, do not say that."
"But I do say it. Oh, that it should have come to this between you and me!"
"I have not deceived you. Indeed I have not. I don't want to see Ludovic again; never, if you do not wish it. I haven't said a word to him. Oh, aunt, pray believe me. I have never spoken a word to him; – in the way of what you mean."
"Will you consent to marry Peter Steinmarc?" Linda hesitated a moment before she answered. "Tell me, Miss; will you promise to take Peter Steinmarc as your husband?"
"I cannot promise that, aunt Charlotte."
"Then I will never forgive you, – never. And God will never forgive you. I did not think it possible that my sister's child should have been so false to me."
"I have not been false to you," said Linda through her tears.
"And such a terrible young man, too; one who drinks, and gambles, and is a rebel; one of whom all the world speaks ill; a penniless spendthrift, to whom no decent girl would betroth herself. But, perhaps, you are to be his light-of-love!"
"It is a shame, – a great shame, – for you to say – such things," said Linda, sobbing bitterly. "No, I won't wait, I must go. I would sooner be dead than hear you say such things to me. So I would. I can't help it, if it's wicked. You make me say it." Then Linda escaped from the room, and went up to her bed; and on the next morning she was too ill either to eat her breakfast or to go to church.
Of course she saw nothing of Peter on that morning; but she heard the creaking of his shoes as he went forth after his morning meal, and I fear that her good wishes for his Sunday work did not go with him on that Sabbath morning. Three or four times her aunt was in her room, but to her aunt Linda would say no more than that she was sick and could not leave her bed. Madame Staubach did not renew the revilings which she had poured forth so freely on the preceding evening, partly influenced by Linda's headache, and partly, perhaps, by a statement which had been made to her by Tetchen as to the amount of love-making which had taken place. "Lord bless you, ma'am, in any other house than this it would go for nothing. Over at Jacob Heisse's, among his girls, it wouldn't even have been counted at all, – such a few words as that. Just the compliments of the day, and no more." Tetchen could not have heard it all, or she would hardly have talked of the compliments of the day. When Ludovic had told Linda that she was the fairest girl in all Nuremberg, and that he never could be happy, not for an hour, unless he might hope to call her his own, even Tetchen, whose notions about young men were not over strict, could not have taken such words as simply meaning the compliments of the day. But there was Linda sick in bed, and this was Sunday morning, and nothing further could be said or done on the instant. And, moreover, such love-making as had taken place did in truth seem to have been perpetrated altogether on the side of the young man. Therefore it was that Madame Staubach spoke with a gentle voice as she prescribed to Linda some pill or potion that might probably be of service, and then went forth to her church.
Madame Staubach's prayers on a Sunday morning were a long affair. She usually left the house a little after ten, and did not return till past two. Soon after she was gone, on the present occasion, Tetchen came up to Linda's room, and expressed her own desire to go to the Frauenkirche, – for Tetchen was a Roman Catholic. "That is, if you mean to get up, miss, I'll go," said Tetchen. Linda, turning in her bed, thought that her head would be better now that her aunt was gone, and promised that she would get up. In half an hour she was alone in the kitchen down-stairs, and Tetchen had started to the Frauenkirche, – or to whatever other place was more agreeable to her for the occupation of her Sunday morning.
It was by no means an uncommon occurrence that Linda should be left alone in the house on some part of the Sunday, and she would naturally have seated herself with a book at the parlour window as soon as she had completed what little there might be to be done in the kitchen. But on this occasion there came upon her a feeling of desolateness as she thought of her present condition. Not only was she alone now, but she must be alone for ever. She had no friend left. Her aunt was estranged from her. Peter Steinmarc was her bitterest enemy. And she did not dare even to think of Ludovic Valcarm. She had
