"Christine!" she exclaimed, angrily, in an undertone, and without noticing Johanna she rushed at the girl. "Christine, how dare you? Go away this moment!" And she tried to push the girl away from the door, but her hand held fast the latch. "For God's sake," a poor little pleading voice cried, "let me only say one word to Jakob!" "Not one," Frau Kruger interposed. "Go this instant, I tell you!" And she raised the book as if to strike the girl. "Frau Kruger!" Johanna exclaimed, approaching the pair. They turned. The girl's shawl had fallen back from her head, and a pale youthful face, the large dark eyes swollen with weeping, met Johanna's look, while the violence of the forester's wife was instantly replaced by extreme courtesy. "Oh, Fräulein!" she said, with a curtsey, "do not take it amiss. I never like to harm a living creature, but Christine is a shameless girl, who will persist in worrying Jakob." "I worry him?" the girl said, quickly. "Why, since his accident I have never even been allowed to see him. Have pity; let me bid him good-by. I am going to Oberroda to-day, but I cannot go so." And she burst into tears. "Frau Kruger, be persuaded," Johanna entreated. "The poor girl----" "Oh, Fräulein, do not waste your compassion," the forester's wife interrupted her, with an angry glance at the girl. "Christine has always been a bad, wilful creature. She has had a child, and wants to force Jakob to marry her, but he will have nothing to do with her." "Jakob have nothing to do with me? That is not true," cried the girl. "He will not forsake me, and I will not forsake him. And he loved the little child dearly, and now he does not even know that it is dead. I must tell him." She hid her face and sobbed aloud. "How can you be so hard-hearted?" said Johanna. "You must let the girl speak with the sick man." "That she may make him worse with her whining," said Frau Kruger. "If she loves him as much as she says she does, she might spare him her blubbering. And what of it? It is lucky that the Lord took the brat from her." "Frau Kruger!" Johanna exclaimed, indignantly; and Christine, who had grown deadly pale, drew the shawl over her head and silently left the house. "Oh, Fräulein, if you but knew! Have the kindness to come in here and let me tell you," the forester's wife begged, all smiles and servility again; but Johanna left her and followed Christine. The girl ran down the forest-path like a hunted creature. Suddenly her strength seemed to fail her, and she leaned against a tree. Johanna hurried to her. "Where is your home? I will take you there," she said kindly. "Home? I have none!" the girl replied, with a wild look. "My brother has turned me out of doors, and they will not let me go to Jakob. His sister says I am too bad for Jakob; my brother says Jakob is too bad for me. Ah, good heavens! if we are both such wretches, we are well suited to each other."