"Roller; in the letter to the General, he has not disguised his hand." She gave the letter hastily back to her father and struck her hands together, as if she wished to remove all trace of its touch: "Oh, the shame, the shame!" she murmured; "oh, the disgrace! the horror of it!" The dismissed overseer had been at first received in the family, till Ferdinanda saw that he had dared to raise his eyes to her; she had taken advantage of a dispute he had had with her father first to loosen and then to put an end altogether to his relations with the family. And the insolent, evil eyes of this man--"Oh, the shame! oh, the disgrace!" she murmured again. She paced rapidly up and down, then hastened to the writing-table, which stood at the far end of the long room, wrote a few hurried lines, and then came back with the note to her father, who had remained motionless on the same spot: "Read it!" And he read: "My father is ready to sacrifice his convictions for my sake and consents to my marriage with Lieutenant von Werben. I, however, for reasons which my pride refuses to write down, reject this marriage now and for ever as a moral impossibility, and release Lieutenant von Werben from any obligation which he has, or thinks he has, towards me. This determination, which I have made of my own free will, is irrevocable; any attempt on the part of Lieutenant von Werben to overthrow it, I shall regard as an insult. "Ferdinanda Schmidt." "Is that right?" He nodded. "Am I to send him this!" "In my name." She turned from him, and, with a modelling-tool in her hand, went up to her work. Her father folded the letter and went towards the door. There he remained standing. She did not look up, but appeared quite absorbed in her work. His eyes rested on her with an expression of deep sorrow. "And yet!" murmured he, "and yet!" He closed the door behind him and walked slowly across the yard, through whose wide, empty space the storm was raging. "Deserted and empty!" he murmured, "all deserted and empty. That is the burden of the song for her and me." "Uncle!" He started from his gloomy musings. Reinhold came hurriedly from the house towards him--bareheaded and excited. "Uncle, for heaven's sake!--the General has just left me. I know all--what have you decided?" "What must be." "It will be the death of Ferdinanda." "Better death than a life of dishonour." He stepped past Reinhold into the house. Reinhold did not venture to follow him; he knew that it would be useless. BOOK IV. CHAPTER I.