He boasted, in the presence of those estimable old gentlemen, the Brothers Ebner, that he had flung at my feet the ring which bound you to his son.

You had been surprised at midnight, he said, in the arms of a Swiss knight, and that base scoundrel Siebenburg, his daughter's husband, dared at the gaming-table, before a number of knights and gentlemen--among them young Hans Gross, Veit Holzschuher, and others-to put your interview with the Swiss in so false a light that No, I cannot bring my lips to utter it---- "You need hear only this one thing more: the wretch said that he thanked his patron saint that they had discovered the jade's tricks in time.

And this, child, was the real belief of the whole contemptible crew! But now that the water is up to their necks, and they need my helping hand to save them from drowning-now they will graciously take Ernst Ortlieb's daughter if he will give them his property into the bargain, that they may destroy both fortune and child.

No--a thousand times no! It is not seemly, at this hour, to yield to the spirit of hate; but she who is lying in her last sleep above would not have counselled me by a single word to such suicidal folly.

I did not learn the worst until I went to the Council, or I would have turned the importunate fellow from the door this morning.