Antonio also, who had begun to tidy Justus's desk as soon as the two friends had left the studio, had observed the lady in black as she glided past the window. He threw the papers which he held in his hand into the desk, and was about to rush out, but remembered that he could not follow her in his working dress, and stopped with much annoyance. The lady in black had been with Ferdinanda at the same hour yesterday, but as the studio was full, he had not been able to make his observations through the door. She was no model--he knew better than that! But who could it be, if not an emissary from the man he hated? Perhaps she would come for the third time at a more convenient hour. He must find out! He returned to the desk. "Bah!" said he, "what is there to be found here? accounts, orders--the old story! And what use is it to listen to their conversation? Always the same empty chatter. I can't think why he wants to know what the Captain talks about to the maestro!" He knew that Ferdinanda was no longer in her study, but yet his gleaming eyes remained fixed on her door as he sat here brooding in the twilight. "I will do everything that he commands. He is very wise, very powerful, and very wealthy; but what good can he do here? Is not she now even more unhappy than she was before? And if she should ever find out that it was I--but the signor is right there, one thing always remains to me--the last, best of all--revenge!" CHAPTER VII. Latterly, while Ferdinanda still kept her bed, Uncle Ernst hardly left his room, and the Schmidt family circle therefore was to a great extent broken up, the two friends had divided their evenings between it and the Kreisels pretty regularly as they said, or very irregularly as Aunt Rikchen said. Reinhold was forced to agree with his aunt, and attempted no further excuses, as he did not want to tell any untruths, and could not acknowledge the true reason. The real truth was that his aunt's perpetual complaints threatened to destroy his last remnant of cheerfulness, while on the contrary he found the comfort and consolation that he so greatly needed in the atmosphere of sunshine which the sweet blind girl diffused around her. Latterly, indeed, even this sunshine had been a little clouded. The two friends had a suspicion, which they did not however impart to the poor girl, that the eccentric old gentleman, having made up his mind, as he said, that he could no longer with honour remain a Socialist, had sacrificed his dislike to speculation to the darling wish of his heart, to provide for Cilli after his own death, and had been speculating eagerly with the scanty means that he had toilsomely scraped together in the course of years. He was very mysterious about it indeed, and denied it roundly when Justus laughingly taxed him with it; but Justus would not be deceived, and even thought he could gather, from a casual expression the other had let fall, that it was the doubtful star of the