“I will secure mine against such risks,” Casper Eysvogel answered; then, casting a contemptuous glance at Els and a wrathful one at the Swiss knight, he added with angry resolution:  “It is not yet too late.  So long as I am myself no one shall bring peril and disgrace upon my house and my son.”

Then Herr Ernst had suddenly become aware of the suspicion with which his beautiful, brave, self-sacrificing child was regarded.  Pale as death, he struggled for composure, and when his eyes met the imploring gaze of the basely defamed girl, he said to himself that he must maintain his self-control in order not to afford the frivolous revellers who surrounded him an entertaining spectacle.

Wolff was dear to him, but before he would have led his Els to the house where the miserable “Mustache” lived, and whose head was the coldhearted, gloomy man whose words had just struck him like a poisoned arrow, he, whom the Lord had bereft of his beloved, gallant son, would have been ready to deprive himself of his daughters also and take both to the convent.  Eva longed to go, and Els might find there a new and beautiful happiness, like his sister, the Abbess Kunigunde.  In the Eysvogel house, never!

During these hasty reflections Els extended her hand toward him, and the shining gold circlet which her lover had placed on her ring finger glittered in the torchlight.  A thought darted through his brain with the speed of lightning, and without hesitation he drew the ring from the hand of his astonished daughter, whispering curtly, yet tenderly, in reply to her anxious cry, “What are you doing?”

“Trust me, child.”

Then hastily approaching Casper Eysvogel, he beckoned to him to move a little aside from the group.

The other followed, believing that Herr Ernst would now promise the sum requested, yet firmly resolved, much as he needed it, to refuse.

Ernst Ortlieb, however, made no allusion to business matters, but with a swift gesture handed him the ring which united their two children.  Then, after a rapid glance around had assured him that no one had followed them, he whispered to Herr Casper:  “Tell your Wolff that he was, and would have remained, dear to us; but my daughter seems to me too good for his father’s house and for kindred who fear that she will bring injury and shame upon them.  Your wish is fulfilled.  I hereby break the betrothal.”

“And, in so doing, you only anticipate the step which I intended to take with more cogent motives,” replied Casper Eysvogel with cool composure, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously.  “The city will judge to-morrow which of the two parties was compelled to sever a bond sacred in the sight of God and men.  Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to give your daughter the good opinion you cherish of my son.”

Drawing his stately figure to its full height as he spoke, he gazed at his diminutive adversary with a look of haughty contempt and, without vouchsafing a word in farewell, turned his back upon him.