"I am doing all that I can, but I am so weak that I do not know whether I shall be able to travel to-night." "I cannot imagine how you can give way so. You never used to do it. When I think of the self-control that you were wont to exercise,--your determination would have done honour to a man,--and now! Oh, it is deplorable!" "You torture me, uncle!" cried Ernestine, as she threw several books into a chest at her side. "You will not believe that I am really much weaker than I have ever been before. It is of my own free will that I am going away--why should I not hasten as much as I can?" Her uncle looked askance at her with a smile. "You are mistaken, my child. It is not your will that is acting,--it is only a whim that thus urges you on. And a whim is the child of circumstances, and can be controlled by them." "I do not know what circumstances could control this 'whim,' as you are pleased to call it. Nothing can happen to-day or to-morrow to change my determination. What delay can you apprehend? No one knows of my departure, so that it cannot be impeded by remonstrances from any quarter. I have not even told good old Leonhardt that I am going, and Willmers heard it only this morning. Could I do more to prove to you that I am in earnest?" Leuthold looked at her again with his sarcastic smile. He knew well that Ernestine had preserved this strict silence concerning her departure only because she did not feel strong enough to withstand any friendly remonstrances. Therefore he trembled lest some unforeseen accident might yet divulge her plans. His very existence depended upon her staying or going. During the four weeks that had elapsed since Ernestine's return from town, Leuthold's entire influence had been exerted to remove Ernestine from this part of the country, and, if possible, from Germany. She must never again see the man who had evidently made such an impression upon her. Now less than ever could she be allowed to form any attachment, for, if she were now to marry, and require her property at his hands, he was lost! He had cautiously managed to secure an appointment, through an American agent, in a large chemical manufactory in New York. To Ernestine he had opened the brilliant prospect of delivering a course of scientific lectures there. The fact that she had received the prize from a German university for one of her papers would surely suffice to make her reputation in America,--and Leuthold had honestly done his best to have her fame as an intellectual phenomenon noised abroad. In his present embarrassed circumstances, it was of the greatest importance to him that she should be placed in a position to support herself, that she might not be a burden to him. If the lectures did not succeed, she would have to earn her living as a "female physician." But upon this point he prudently forbore to enlighten her. He fired her imagination with the enormous advantages, pecuniary and other, that must accrue from her lectures.