Barbara is attending to affairs in the kitchen, and now I tell you again: You must help a sufferer." "But, Doctor--" "I must beg you to hurry, for my time is limited.

Do you wish to make yourself useful; yes or no ?" The door of the dining-room had remained open.

Maria again glanced at the table, and all the pleasures she had anticipated this evening passed through her mind.

But as the doctor was preparing to go, she stopped him, saying: "I will come." The manners of this blunt, but unselfish and clever man were familiar to Maria who, without waiting for a reply, brought her shawl, and led the way downstairs.

As they passed by the kitchen, Bontius called to Barbara: "Tell Meister Peter, I have taken his wife to see Fraulein Van Hoogstraten in Nobelstrasse." Maria could scarcely keep up with the doctor's rapid strides and had some difficulty in understanding him, as in broken sentences he told her that all the Glipper friends of the Hoogstraten family had left the city, the old Fraulein was dead, the servants had run away from fear of the plague, which had no existence, and Henrica was now deserted.