"Roller; he has not even disguised his hand to the General." She gave the letter back to her father quickly, and pressed her forehead as if she wished to remove the traces of emotion. "Oh, the disgrace, the disgrace!" she muttered; "oh, the disgust! the disgust!" The dismissed inspector had taken up his residence in her family till Ferdinande had noticed that he was audaciously beginning to pay attention to her; she had made use of a pretense of a disagreement, which he had had with her father, first to strain the social relations, then to drop them. And the bold repulsive eyes of the man--"Oh, the disgrace! oh, the disgrace! oh, the disgust!" she muttered continually. She paced with long strides up and down, then went hurriedly to the writing-desk which stood at one end of the large room, wrote hastily a few lines, and then took the sheet to her father, who had remained standing motionless in the same spot. "Read!" And he read: My father wishes to make a sacrifice of his convictions for me, and consents to my union with Lieutenant von Werben. But, for reasons which my pride forbids me to record, I renounce this union once for all, as a moral impossibility, and release Lieutenant von Werben from all responsibility which he may consider he has toward me. This decision, which I have reached with full freedom, is irrevocable; I shall consider any attempt on the part of Lieutenant von Werben to change it as an insult. Signed, Ferdinande Schmidt. "Is that correct?" He nodded. "Shall I send him this?" "In my name." She turned away from him and, seizing a modeling stick, went to her work. Her father folded the sheet and went toward the door. Then he stopped. She did not look up, apparently entirely absorbed in her work. His eyes rested upon her with deep pain--"And yet!" he murmured--"Yet!" He had closed the door behind him and was walking slowly across the court through whose broad empty space the rain-storm howled. "Empty and desolate!" he murmured.--"All is empty and desolate! That is the end of the story for me and for her!" "Uncle!" He started from his sullen brooding; Reinhold was hastily coming from the house toward him, bareheaded, excited. "Uncle, for Heaven's sake!--The General has just left me--I know all.--What did you decide?" "What we had to." "It will be the death of Ferdinande!" "Better that than a dishonorable life!" He strode past Reinhold into the house. Reinhold did not dare to follow him; he knew it would be useless. * * * * *