With a loud cry, Giulia sank into the sofa cushions. "Well, then, I congratulate you upon the Polter-abend,"[1] said Buschmann scornfully, as he turned upon his heels and left the room amid the clatter of his spurs. "What have you done?" said Giulia, as she gazed at Blanden with large tearful eyes, her hand raised as if in protest, and sobbing with internal agitation. "I will protect you against all the world," cried Blanden with, overwhelming emotion, "my Giulia, my betrothed!" And she lay in his arms, half unconscious, acquiescent, infinitely blissful, and desperately defiant of fate. "Come what may," whispered she, "I am yours." CHAPTER II. IN THE LION'S DEN. Beate looked enterprising enough in the Spanish mantilla, which she had thrown as a hood over her head; her little eyes sparkled; she resembled a tiger cat, going out in search of prey. She rang at the door of a large house, and before the sleepy porter opened it, she tried whether the dagger would spring easily and quickly out of its sheath. She knew the way; it led through a spacious hall, and through a second door standing open, past a back building of stables and sheds, which looked as if some manor house had gone astray in the town. Then she arrived at a small gate, and through the railing perceived a two-storied garden house, of which the shutters were closed; only through the door, draped with curtains on the ground floor, gleamed a red light, whose lost reflection fell upon the silver of the frosty snow, with which the nearest yew trees were covered. The gate was locked. Beate had to ring again. Then the snow crackled, and a gnome-like creature crept up to the gate; almost buried beneath the weight of snow which the clouds and trees had shed upon her, she stared at the stranger with glaring eyes; she looked like an Esquimaux woman, at whose hut some stranger's hand knocks. It was Kätchen! After that meeting with Blanden she had stayed up in her chamber; had tossed about upon her straw couch as if in feverish delirium, until the grey morn rose above the roofs, then she had fallen fast asleep. But mother Hecht knew no consideration for lazy maid-servants, who neglected their duties--and when Kätchen, on the following morning, appeared in the kitchen with hollow eyes and pallid face, she was immediately driven out of the house.