He followed the girl into the hall, and from thence into the sitting-room on the left, where she told him by signs to step lightly, until they reached the narrow door that opened into Cecilia's sleeping-room. A faint ray of light gleamed through the crack over the threshold. The girl crouched down and put her ear to the door. Brandow stood bending over her, also listening. They could distinctly hear some one speaking, but neither who it was, nor what was said. But what did it matter? To whom could she speak here, except to him? What could they say except what they dared not suffer others to hear? And now the light grew brighter--they had entered the sleeping-room. Brandow trembled from head to foot with jealous fury. Should he rush in and strangle the pair, expose them to open shame? But Gotthold was no longer the feeble boy of former days; the result of a conflict with him, man to man, was at least doubtful, and he had certainly already received his pay. The disgrace would cling to him, and--it was too late! The barking of the dog, which made him and his accomplice fly from the door, must have warned them too; he would find the nest empty. Be it so; he had heard enough. "Well?" said Rieke, when they had glided back through the sitting-room and were again standing in the hall. "Go in, and say I will come directly," replied Brandow. The tone in which he spoke predicted some evil; Rieke was almost sorry for what she had done. "He isn't like you," she said soothingly, with the most perfect sincerity. Brandow laughed scornfully. "Go in," he repeated, stamping his foot. The girl obeyed; Brandow went to the open door and gazed across the dark court-yard towards the stables. The rain beat into his face, and with it came the sickly odor of native tobacco. On the left, directly under him, before the stone bench glowed a red spot, and a harsh voice asked: "Well, what about harnessing the horses?" It was the man for whom he had just been looking, upon whom he had depended for the execution of the plan of vengeance brooding darkly in his soul, nay the man, as he now imagined, who had implanted its first germ. So it was to be. "He won't want to go away now, if it were only on account of the bad weather." "The others must go too." "They have stayed here often enough." "Send them away." Brandow reflected a moment. "If I win a few hundred more, they will go of their own accord," he murmured. "But you must give him a thorough soaking, Hinrich--a thorough one, mind." "Where there is no bottom," said Hinrich. The words quivered through Brandow's soul like a flash of lightning across a midnight sky. That was the very thing. "And I'll give you whatever you ask!" he said, in a hoarse tone, bending down into the cloud of smoke that rose from Hinrich's pipe. "No pay, no work,--and that trick with Brownlock a little while ago cost me five louis-d'or. I should like half down now."