She sprang back as if smitten by an arrow; from her mouth came a muffled scream; under her black veil her great eyes shone out terribly. I thought her about to flee, but her strength seemed to fail her. She fell on her knees by the lattice, pressing her head against the bars. I knelt and kissed one of her hands as it closed around the iron. “Walter!” she said; “Walter!” And for some time she seemed able only to repeat my name. “I knew you were in sorrow, Ilsa,” I said now calmly; rising, and letting her sobbing and panic spend itself, “therefore I have come. And believe me, it is not the Devil, but God who has brought me here.” She sat upright now, and showed no signs of flight; but twisted and untwisted her hands in a manner piteous. At last she began talking brokenly. “Oh! what are we to do? Christ help us! What are we to do?” Presently her form straightened. “You have done wrong, Walter, utterly wrong to come here. Do you not see what you have done? After I realized how terrible had been my mistake, how not by praying _for_ you in the distant cloister, but _beside_ you as your loving wife, I might have made you a nobler man, what could I do save to try to crush all memory, all initiative, all ambition? To become as dry and unhuman and cold as these nuns here? And I believed I was gaining the mastery over myself, a little. And now you are here, and all the fires are burning hotter, a thousandfold hotter than ever. Blessed God, but it is hard!” “Ilsa,” I answered her, “hard it has been for you, but bethink you, somewhat hard it has been for me. After you spurned me, only the grace of God and the monitions of Dr. Luther saved me from turning back to my old life, seven times more wicked than before. And think not your prayers were wholly vain. Let no man boast his soul is reckoned safe; but if man may strive, I have striven to redeem mine. I am not what I was once. I am all German now.” And in as few words as possible I told her of my efforts for my Regenstein folk and in behalf of Dr. Luther. Seeing the thing seemed to interest her I told her of the present state of the Cause, and how all Germany seemed straining on her moorings to Rome, and how Papal power, and all things with it, were like to be swept into the cupboard of the discarded past. She put her hands to her eyes as I spoke. There came the relief of tears. Presently she was calmer than I. “Are we in danger of discovery?” I asked.