"I will keep you, save you, and tear you from the arms of death," cried Gotthold, clasping Cecilia's hands, "you and your child, whom you would kill, if, while ill and feverish, you exposed it to the dangers of a journey, which, under any circumstances, would be a useless cruelty, for he would know how to find you there or anywhere if he wants to do so--there as well as here, and therefore you must not stay here. You can remain nowhere, except under my protection, I repeat it. I will guard you. Cecilia, have you then no faith in me, my courage, my strength, my judgment? And I too cannot tell you all, how I intend to save you, will save you; I must beg you to let me take my own way, without explanation. Is not what is fair for women, right for men? May not cases occur for us also, in which we act as duty and honor command, and which we can confide only to a man? And, Cecilia, when I tell you that I have trusted to a man, to whom from childhood you have looked up with deep reverence, without suspecting that you owed him the respect so freely paid--and this man approves of my plan and resolution, and will himself do all in his power that the plan may not remain a plan, that the resolution may be executed--and this man will assure you of the fact with his own lips--Cecilia, I will bring this old man, your ancestor, to you, and when kneeling before him with his hand resting upon your head, the past, which seems as brazen and immutable as fate, reels and totters, you will perhaps believe that the present is not unalterably fixed for those who live and love!" Gotthold hurried out of the room. Cecilia, trembling with a strange foreboding, gazed steadily at the door through which he had disappeared. It opened again: the tall form that entered was compelled to bend its head, and thus, with drooping head and downcast eyes, approached her. A strange conviction shot through her mind: even so had her father looked when he called her to his bedside an hour before he died, and at that moment he had resembled the picture of his grandfather, which hung in the sitting-room beside the old clock. Her knees trembled, and almost refused to support her, as he held out his hand. Gotthold closed the door. The words spoken between the two must ever remain a secret. CHAPTER XXX.