She suppressed her sorrowful emotion with a deep-drawn breath, and offering Reinhold a chair, and herself taking a place on the sofa, continued in a calm voice: "My father has been passed over in the promotion for which he stood next! You know what that means. He has just gone to offer his resignation in person to the Minister!" "Good God!" said Reinhold, "an officer of his high character, of his vast services to the nation--is it possible!" Elsa sat there, her fixed burning eyes looking down, a bitter smile trembling on her lips, while she slowly nodded her head once or twice. Reinhold saw how forced was the self-command with which she had come to meet him, how deeply she felt the insult which had been offered to her father. "And to think," he said in a low voice, "that I myself assisted to bring about this catastrophe. Your father has repeatedly impressed upon me what difficulties he had to struggle with, how precarious, how insecure his position was, and that a mere trifle might suffice to make it untenable----" Elsa shook her head. "No, no!" she said, "it is not that. My father was determined to retire if ever this unhappy concession was carried through against his will. But that they should not even have waited, even given him time to carry out his resolution, that is what he resents, and what I fear will make his proud heart bleed." The tears ran from her fixed eyes down her pale cheeks. Reinhold's heart was full to overflowing with love and sympathy. A voice within him cried out, "My poor, poor darling," but he dared not speak out yet. Elsa had dried her tears with her handkerchief. "You must not look so miserable," she said, trying to smile; "my father has done his duty, and you have done your duty. Is not the consciousness of this the best, the only consolation in such a case as this, which we must accept whether we will or no?" "Certainly," said Reinhold; "and yet how sad it sounds from such lips." "Because I am a girl," said Elsa. "I think it is just we girls who can do so little for ourselves, who are often so helpless in the face of circumstances, who are not early enough impressed with this idea. What would have become of me in these last few days if I had not done so. If I had not at least tried to do so, so far as lay in my power. And now to-day, when I have heard every thing from my father about Ottomar----" Reinhold looked up startled. Elsa's eyes had fallen, a burning colour had come into her cheeks; she went on slowly in a low voice, "I have learnt everything!" "Could not that, at least, have been spared you?" said Reinhold after a silent pause.