In the conversation that had taken place between Hildegarde and Elsa, the former had considered it her duty to tell her new friend frankly about her family affairs, and to confess quite plainly how she had been sent year after year to Berlin to get a rich husband. With tears she confessed she loved George, but declared she must renounce him, for she could not endure that George should believe, even for a moment, that she loved him for his money. At first when Elsa heard this she assumed a somewhat distant air, then she felt the most sincere sympathy for Hildegarde, whose every word showed clearly and distinctly how good and true she was. Elsa tried to console her to the best of her ability, and assured her that George would not doubt her, but that his love would be all the greater when he heard what a sad life she had had. Elsa undertook to inform her father what Hildegarde had told her, and at the first moment he was quite overcome, and kept on saying to his son--"George, leave the thing alone, give up all thoughts of Hildegarde, don't be drawn into that wretched family affair." But he made no further opposition after he had seen Hildegarde and had had an hour's conversation with her _tête-à-tête_. He took his son aside and said, "George, the girl's an angel, we must make her happy and compensate her for all she has gone through by a future without a care or worry." So they had all taken counsel together as to how Hildegarde's relatives were to be helped. Hildegarde had told them the extent of the debts so far as she remembered it from her last visit home, and at last it was arranged that old Winkler should pay one half of the debts, and George, out of his own income, the other. Besides this, Winkler intended to put aside a certain sum every year, from which Hildegarde could make her parents an allowance, and so they would be removed from all pecuniary anxiety. It was more difficult to arrange what was to be done about Fritz. George wanted to pledge himself to give his brother-in-law a monthly allowance, but Hildegarde shook her head at this. "There is really no object in doing that, George. If, in your kindness, you were to give him thousands and thousands, it would be so much money thrown away. The more Fritz has the more he needs. He would never manage on whatever he had; he would always borrow from us, he would not stop gambling, and if we wouldn't help him he would borrow on I O U's, and would soon be as deeply in debt as he is to-day. It is sad for his own sister to have to say this, but I can only see one way of helping Fritz--he must leave the army and go abroad. He will never be any better until he works and earns his own living and so gets to understand the value of money."