The hand that rested in Gotthold's was as hard as iron; but he thought he felt in its nervous pressure that the man intended to keep his word. "Come, then," said he, "and, Jochen, show us a path by which we can reach your house without being seen, if possible." CHAPTER XXXII. "My poor dear friend! To think we must part again; it is really too hard. But don't be discouraged! Gretchen will get well, and everything will come out right at last." Ottilie Wollnow said these words in the antechamber of her house in Sundin, to Gotthold, with whom she had just left the room where Cecilia and old Borlaf were watching Gretchen's feverish slumber. "Everything," repeated Ottilie, as she saw that the look of deep sorrow on Gotthold's expressive face remained unchanged. "You do not really think so yourself," he replied, gratefully pressing Ottilie's hand; "if the child dies, Cecilia, I fear, will never get over it, no matter how much, how entirely, that scoundrel is to blame; at any rate it will be another of those sad, torturing memories, which, according to her own confession to you, separate her from me forever." Herr Wollnow came out of an adjoining room, ready for walking. Ottilie accompanied the two friends to the door. "I wish I could go with you," said she. "And it would not be a bad thing," said Wollnow as the two friends walked through the dusky streets, in which to-day there was an unusual stir and bustle; "women have what in such cases removes mountains--the sovereign passion which we men, luckily for ourselves, have reasoned away, though without obtaining in exchange the sovereign calmness with which that strange old man met Brandow this morning. I would not speak of it in the ladies' presence. Brandow, with the acuteness for which even his enemies must give him credit, had made up his mind from the first moment that Cecilia must sooner or later come here, even if she did not do so at once. He therefore instantly turned round and drove here as fast as the horses could go; he must have met you just outside of Prora. Since that time he has lurked around my house and your lodgings; I admire the firmness with which he has maintained his usual calm manner, and his boldness in telling everybody that his wife had gone away to make a little visit, and the farce Cousin Borlaf had played with the farm-hands--searching the bog and forest--was a piece of roguery for which he would call the spiteful old man, with whom he had long been on bad terms, to a strict account. He must have had a hell of anxiety and dread in his heart, for his enemies--and he has not a few, foremost among whom are Redebas and the Plueggens--took an eager interest in circulating the worst reports, and the members of the committee on the races were on the point of formally demanding an explanation from Brandow, when yesterday evening he said at the club that his wife had arrived here half an hour before, and was staying