"Frau Luise," I said, "I know that you were formerly too proud to summon your guardian to give an account of his management of your property. But now, in such necessity--" She smiled bitterly. "Too proud? My dear friend, I should not have been too proud even at that time to claim my rights. But, as you know, where there is nothing, even the Emperor cannot assert his rights, far less a poor Canoness who eloped with an actor. My uncle squandered the last shilling of my mother's property. Would you have me turn him out of house and home by appealing to the law? But let us say no more about these detestable things. Fortunately I paid the members of the company their monthly salary only a few days ago. As the business is now broken up, they are in a pitiable plight, for where can they obtain a new engagement in midsummer? So the _fundus instructus_ must be sold as quickly and as profitably as possible, and meantime be pawned. You will do me this one last favor, dear Johannes. I have another little plan, too. Why do you look at me so wonderingly? Surely you did not suppose that all this would find me unprepared. I have long expected something of the sort. Weak as he is--but we will not speak of him." She now explained her intention of obtaining, by means of a concert in the theater, a considerable sum for the benefit of the orphaned company, which, bereft of the manager and "the others," could give no more performances. By these "others" she meant Daniel and Victorine. While out of doors she had met an actor, who excitedly asked whether she knew that the couple had just gone on board an English merchant vessel lying in the harbor. He did not say that the manager was with them, but the wife did not doubt it for an instant, and therefore knew what she should find when she returned to the house again. She would herself appear and sing at the concert, she continued. She knew that there would be a full house, for her misfortune, of course, was now in everybody's mouth, and, as she had always kept out of sight, curiosity and perhaps a better feeling would urge many to see and hear the woman who had led so strange a life, and must now reap what she had sown. She did not fear the eyes of strangers. It was a misfortune that her heart had prompted her to entrust her life to the keeping of one who was unworthy, but neither a disgrace nor a crime. So she would appear, with head erect, before a cold, malicious world, and not a note would falter in her throat.