"I tell you all this simply because I do not forget," said Johann Leopold. "I detest family quarrels and lawsuits. I should not like to leave Dönninghausen encumbered with any such, and therefore I propose a friendly settlement to you." "Friendly?" Otto repeated, with bitterness. "True! A birthright for a mess of pottage!" Johann Leopold raised his head, and his eyes flashed. "No; it is not that," he said. "Our grandfather would, without my interference, use every means to cut you off from the inheritance. Whether he would be justified in doing so you may settle for yourself. Moreover, I remain in possession during my life; and, in spite of my ill health, I may live to be an old man. I cannot, then, in all seriousness, regard either as unfriendly or uncousinly my offer to you of real advantages in exchange for your relinquishment of a more or less imaginary right. Think it over. Do not hurry yourself. The only thing requiring haste is your gambling debt. How much do you want?" Otto named the sum. Without a word, Johann Leopold wrote a cheque for the amount and handed it to him. When Otto was about to utter some expression of gratitude he checked him. "No need to thank me. I do it for the sake of the name we both bear." He did not wish that Otto should feel humiliated. But he was humiliated. As the door closed behind him after a hasty 'good-night,' he struck his forehead with his clinched fist, and murmured, "To have to accept this from Johann Leopold! A bullet through my brains would be better!" In this mood he returned to Tannhagen. The empty rooms looked more cheerless than ever,--he could not but be perpetually reminded of Johanna. Ever and anon he seemed to see against the dark background a pale face, the dark eyes dilated with horror,--the Medusa head which had appeared to Magelone and himself that morning in the forest. No, he could not go on living thus! And why should he, when the possibility of beginning a new existence was offered him? There was a high price to pay for it,--a birthright for a mess of pottage. But so much the better. It would be the ransom of his soul. How haughtily Johann Leopold had confronted him! with what maddening coldness he had rejected his thanks for the service he had rendered him! Johann Leopold the Just, to the prodigal of the family! But what if his coldness was the result of another cause? Did he know of Magelone's breach of faith? Was that why he would not marry? And--Otto laughed scornfully--was he exacting payment for his lost happiness, instead of making the guilty man a target for his pistol? "I don't care. I will liberate myself!" Otto concluded his soliloquy. And before he went to bed he wrote to Johann Leopold that he accepted his proposal, and was ready to agree to an immediate legal settlement of the affair.