Amadeus Voss gave a start. “Eh, little worm, what’s gotten into you?” he murmured, contemptuously. “Betrayer!” Michael said. Voss approached him with a threatening gesture. “Michael! Amadeus!” Johanna admonished, beseechingly, and laid her hand on Voss’s arm. And while she did so, the door was opened softly, and the little Stübbe girl slipped silently into the room. She was neatly dressed as always. Her two blond braids were wound about her head and made her pain-touched child’s face seem even older and more madonna-like. She looked about her, and when she caught sight of Michael, she went up to him and handed him a letter. Thereupon she left the room again. Michael unfolded the letter and read it, and all the colour left his face. It slipped from his hand. Lamprecht picked it up. “Does it concern us too?” he asked, with a clear presentiment. “Is it from him?” Michael nodded and Lamprecht read the letter aloud: “Dear Michael:--I take this way of saying farewell to you, and beg you to greet our friends. I must go away from here now, and you will not receive any news of me. Let no one try to seek me out. It seemed simpler and more useful to me to depart in this way than to put off and confuse the unavoidable by explanations and questions. I have taken with me the few things of mine that were in Karen’s rooms. They all went into a little travelling bag. What remains you can pack into the box in the other room; there are a few necessities--some linen and a suit of clothes. Perhaps I shall find it possible to have these sent after me, but it is uncertain. For you, Michael, I am sending one thousand marks to Lamprecht, in order that your instruction may be continued for a time; it may also serve in time of need. Johanna will find in the house-agent’s care to-morrow, when I shall send it, an envelope containing two hundred and fifty marks. Perhaps she will be kind enough to use this money to satisfy a few obligations that I leave behind. Once more: Greet our friends. Cling to them. Farewell. Be brave. Think of Ruth. Your Christian Wahnschaffe.” They had all arisen and grouped themselves about Lamprecht. Shaken to the soul, Lamprecht spoke: “I am his, now and in future, in heart and mind.” “What is the meaning of it, and what the reason?” Thüngen asked, in the shy stillness. “Exactly like Wahnschaffe,” Voss’s voice was heard. “Flat and wooden as a police regulation.” “Be silent,” Johanna breathed at him, in her soul’s pain. “Be silent, Judas!” No other word was said. They all stood about the table, but the place that had been laid for Christian remained empty. Twilight was beginning to fall, and one after another they went away. Amadeus Voss approached Johanna, and said: “That word you spoke to me, following the boy’s example, will burn your soul yet, I promise you.” Michael, rapt from the things about him, looked upward with visionary, gleaming eyes.