Who would believe him if he were to say so? He, whose white robe of innocence has been, however unjustly, smirched, may go on his way through the world, no one will wash him clean; even if God were to proclaim his innocence by signs and wonders--the world would not believe. "Oh," he cried, "I know the world!" Then his eyes fell on Gürlitz manor, Pomuchelskopp's home, and out of a corner of his heart, a corner he thought he had closed and barred for evermore, rose the dread figure of Hate, the tears he had shed for his child dried on his cheek, and his voice which had before uttered the words involuntarily, now repeated them, "a cheat and a thief," and angry thoughts rose thick and fast in his mind: "he is the cause of it all, and we must be quits some day!" He went through Gürlitz, but saw nothing on the right hand or the left. All he had loved there were gone from the place, he had only to do with his hate, and had only one object to set before him in life.--Bräsig was standing by the parsonage barn, and seeing his friend went forward to meet him: "Good morning, Charles. Where are you going? But what's the matter?"--"Nothing, Bräsig! But leave me, leave me alone. Come to Rahnstädt to-morrow, come to-morrow," so saying he walked on and left him. When he came to the hill on the other side of Gürlitz, from the top of which Alick had first shown his young wife his beautiful estate of Pümpelhagen, and where she had shown such unaffected pleasure in what she saw, he stood still. It was the last point from which he could see the place where he had been so happy, and where he had as it were wept tears of blood when his honour and his name had been so cruelly tarnished. His whole soul rebelled against his fate: "The miserable liar!" he said. "And she--she called me a 'murderer' once, then she said it again: 'murderer,' and turned from me in horror.--Your day of sorrow is coming upon you all. I could have saved you, and I would have saved you. I watched over your interests and served you as faithfully as a dog, and you have thrust me from you like a dog; but ...." and he turned to resume his walk to Rahnstädt, hatred still possessing his soul. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: _Translator's note_. The housekeeper in a large farm in N. Germany is a person of great consequence, and is always called Mamselle.] [Footnote 2: _Translator's note_. In Germany the wife has to provide, as well as her own trouseau, all the house and table-linen, and all the furniture even tables and chairs.] [Footnote 3: _Translator's note_. "Fasan"--"Vasall."] [Footnote 4: "Vinum, the father, And c[oe]na, the mother, And Venus, the nurse, Make gout much worse."] END OF VOL. II. GERMAN AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. On the Heights by _B. Auerbach_. Translated by F. E. Bunnett. 3 vols.