But Grollmann did not come back, although Aunt Rikchen almost tore down the bell-rope. Aunt Rikchen was very angry, and would have been furious if she had heard Grollmann relating above to Reinhold unasked, with the minutest details, what he would not have told her for any money. "For you see, sir," said Grollmann, "she is so good in other respects, Fräulein Frederike; but what she knows she must tell, sooner or later, if it cost her her life; and the master cannot bear that, especially from his sister, and we are the sufferers." "What did happen?" asked Reinhold. "This was it," said the old man. "About twelve o'clock last night he came back from the second meeting of the manufacturers; I lighted him to his room, as usual, turned up the lamps in his study, and went into his bedroom to shut the windows, which always stay open till he goes to bed, winter and summer; and there, close to the window, on the floor, lay, what I took at first for a piece of paper, till I took it up and found that it was a regular letter, which somebody must have thrown in from the street, and the small stone that had been fastened to it by a bit of packthread lay close by. I hesitated for a minute or two whether I would not hide the letter, without saying anything to the master, till it occurred to me that the letter might possibly be from a friend, and contain information of something which the master ought to know--a fire, an attempt at murder, or God knows what, of which the rabble are quite capable; so I took it in to the master and told him where and how I had just found it. The master just looked at the address and said: 'That is written in a disguised hand; I will have nothing to do with it; throw it into the fire.' But I urged him so that he at length gave way and opened the letter. The master was standing at one side of the table and I at the other, and of course I could see his face while he was reading; and I was terribly alarmed, for the blood rushed to his head, and the hand in which he held the letter trembled so, that I thought, begging your pardon, that he was going to have a fit. But it passed off; the master only let fall the letter and said: 'It is nonsense; I knew it before. They will not burn the house over our heads; you may go to bed in peace.' I went, but I was not in peace, and was not much surprised when the master rang for me this morning at half-past three--he is always particularly early when he has had any trouble or annoyance in the evening, or if he has anything in particular on his mind. This time it must have been something very bad; the master was in exactly the same dress in which he had come home yesterday evening, and the bed had not been touched. On the other hand, the bottle of wine which I always put in his room at night, and out of which he generally drinks only a glass or two, sometimes nothing at all, was empty to the very last drop; and he looked so wild and strange