"You could easily do that if you chose, by keeping the child in the rooms above, which have been empty for years. Then you might be quiet, and people would not be able to say that the rich Hartwich's delicate child had to sit in the ironing-room in such hot weather,--it is worse than unjust; I think it unwise!" "What!" Hartwich suddenly interrupted him, "shall I leave the child and the servants to their own devices above-stairs, whilst I lie here alone and neglected? Or shall I hire an expensive nurse, and make every one think I am dying, and let the factory-hands suppose themselves without a master?" "That last cannot happen, for they long ago ceased to regard you as their master; they know that I am the ruling spirit of the whole business. As for your talk about the expense of a nurse, such folly can only be explained on the score of your incredibly avarice, which has become a mania with you of late. For whom are you hoarding your wealth? Not for your child; you will leave her no more than what the law compels you to leave her; still less for me, for you have always been a genuine step-brother, and have bequeathed me your property only because I would not communicate to you the secrets of my discoveries without remuneration; and you would rather give away all your wealth at your death than any part of it during your lifetime. And I assure you that if I am to be your heir, which perhaps may never be, I would far rather go without a few thousand thalers than witness such outrageous neglect of a child's education!" The invalid listened earnestly. "You are talking very frankly to me to-day, and are, it seems to me, reckoning very confidently upon my not altering my last will and testament," he said, in an irritated tone of menace. Without a change of feature, the other continued: "With all your faults and eccentricities, you are too upright in character to punish my candour in the way at which you hint. You know well that I mean kindly by you, and that I am an honest man. I might have required large sums of money from you. Upon the strength of the increase of income accruing from my exertions, I might have insisted upon your constituting me your partner, and much else besides; but I have contented myself with the modest position of superintendent, and with the certainty that by your will (God grant you length of days!) a brilliant future may be prepared for my child when I am no more. These proofs of disinterestedness, I think, give me a right to speak frankly to you!" "What is all this circumlocution to lead to?" asked Hartwich, who had grown strikingly languid, while his speech was becoming thick. "Be quick, for I am sleepy." "Simply to this,--that you either remove Ernestine to the upper story, or, what would be better still, away from the house." "Away from the house! Where to?"