and _I_ should never think of falling in love with her. However he took the Louis d'or, and that only made him wish for another, go she kept him supplied at intervals, and thus succeeded in arousing a faint liking for her on his part, and making him give up caring for the other woman. Then she showed him her whole treasure, and they tried to hide it in different places; at last this spring they shut it up in a box and throwing the waxcloth into the butcher's yard, proceeded to bury the money in the garden. We went there with the weaver, and found two hundred and ten pounds worth of Louis d'ors amongst the potatoes. The rest they had spent on furniture, &c."--"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Behrens, "both you and the mayor must be frightfully clever to have found out so much!"--"Of course we are, Mrs. Behrens," said uncle Bräsig calmly.--"But the woman?" asked the old lady, "she is the nearest to him, you know."--"Yes, Mrs. Behrens, that was a sublime moment when the mayor, with the small box and the money hidden away in his every day hat, confronted the woman with her former husband and called upon her to tell the truth. She lied again. The mayor then took up his hat and said: 'It doesn't matter. We've got the money.' The moment she caught sight of the box, she fell upon the weaver like a fury, and in one second, before you could look round, had torn his face with her nails, exclaiming: 'The wretch! I wanted to make him happy and now he has made me miserable!' Ah, Mrs. Behrens, love is even madder than jealousy. Mrs. Kählert would never have done that! But, Mrs. Behrens, I think that our fish must be growing cold."--"Oh, Bräsig, how can you think of such a thing just now! But I must go to Hawermann and tell him ...."--"How glad you are that he's cleared at last," said Bräsig, drawing Mrs. Behrens gently back to the sofa, "and so you shall, but not quite yet. You see I think that Hawermann wants to have a little quiet time to tell God all about it, and that Louisa is helping him, which is quite right. It's enough for her to be there, for as you know being a clergyman's wife, that our God is a jealous God, and doesn't suffer people to meddle when he is speaking to a soul that is filled with gratitude to Him. He draws back all such as would interfere, and now leads the way with human compassion as He once did with the Shining Light."--Little Mrs. Behrens gazed at him in speechless amazement. At last she murmured: "Oh, Bräsig, I've always looked upon you as a heathen, and now I see that you're a Christian."--"I know nothing about that, Mrs. Behrens. I'm sure of this, however, that what little I've been able to do in this matter has been done as an assessor and not as a Christian. But, Mrs. Behrens, our fish dinner is quite spoilt, and besides that, I'm not at all hungry. I feel as if I hadn't enough room to breathe here, so good-bye for the present, I'm going out to get a little fresh air." CHAPTER XI.