And suddenly he felt soft arms embracing him, and a girl's voice asked anxiously: "Papa, dearest papa, you are surely sick again;" and the kindly, firm voice of a man who had taken his hand to feel the pulse, and who now said: "You have stayed up too long! we must try and get you into bed again." These voices, these words, fell like a mild, refreshing rain falling upon a sunburnt plant, upon the heart of the poor man, who was so sick in body and soul. He put his arms around the slender waist of his daughter and drew her to his heart in a long, silent embrace. He could have wept, but he was ashamed. Sophie asked again and again if he felt worse. Franz, who had ordered lights to be brought in, begged more and more urgently that he should not risk what had been so painfully gained by sitting up any longer. But the privy councillor would not hear of going to bed; he said he felt very comfortable in his arm-chair, and not in the least fatigued. Besides, he had to talk to Franz, and Sophie might in the meantime attend to the supper. Franz, whose clear eye had well observed the restlessness, the excitement of his patient, considered it best to humor him in his wishes, and gave a nod to his betrothed to leave him alone with her father. Sophie went out with an anxious, inquiring glance at Franz, which the latter answered by a reassuring smile. The door had hardly closed after the slender form of the young girl, when the privy councillor seized Franz's hand and said, in a voice which was in vain striving to be firm, "I have something to tell you, Franz, which I cannot any longer conceal from you under the circumstances, and, since I may have to meet death any moment, without acting dishonorably." "What is it, my dear sir?" asked Franz, moving a chair close to the privy councillor's seat and taking his hand into his with a gesture of great kindness. "It is this!" said the privy councillor--and now he told Franz, that partly the want of prudent economy and partly the loaning of countless sums of money to poor and needy people, which were never returned, had gradually brought him seriously into debt; that he had hoped to work himself out by means of increased industry in the coming years, but that now all such hopes were futile, as he felt but too painfully. The privy councillor paused here, partly because he was too much exhausted for the time, and partly because he expected an answer from Franz. But the young man sat there with cast-down eyes, remaining silent, and the patient continued with a lower and more trembling voice: "Pardon me, my dear Franz, that my perhaps criminal selfishness, for which I hope you may find some excuse, has made me hesitate so long before making this communication to you. But it is a terrible task to have to afflict a man whom we love; to have to impoverish a man whom we would like to load with all the world can give."