The spacious, lofty sitting-room which Seitz Siebenburg entered looked very magnificent.  Gay Flanders tapestries hung on the walls.  The ceiling was slightly vaulted, and in the centre of each mesh of the net designed upon it glittered a richly gilded kingfisher from the family coat of arms.  Bear and leopard skins lay on the cushions, and upon the shelf which surrounded three sides of the apartment stood costly vases, gold and silver utensils, Venetian mirrors and goblets.  The chairs and furniture were made of rare woods inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl, brought by way of Genoa from Moorish Spain.  In the bow window jutting out into the street, where the old grandmother sat in her armchair, two green and yellow parrots on brass perches interrupted the conversation, whenever it grew louder, with the shrill screams of their ugly voices.

Siebenburg found all the family except Wolff and the twins.  His wife was half sitting, half reclining, on a divan.  When Seitz entered she raised her head from the white arm on which it had rested, turned her oval face with its regular features towards him, and gathered up the fair locks which, released from their braids, hung around her in long, thick tresses.  Her eyes showed that she had been weeping violently, and as her husband approached she again sobbed painfully.

Her grandmother seemed annoyed by her lamentations for, pointing to Isabella’s tears, she exclaimed sharply, glancing angrily at Siebenburg: 

“It’s a pity for every one of them!”

The knight’s blood boiled at the words, but they strengthened his courage.  He felt relieved from any consideration for these people, not one of whom, except the poor woman shedding such burning tears, had given him occasion to return love for love.  Had they flowed only for the lost wealth, and not for him and the grief he caused Isabella, they would not have seemed “a pity” to the old countess.

Siebenburg’s breath came quicker.

The gratitude he owed his father-in-law certainly did not outweigh the humiliations with which he, his weak wife, and ill-natured mother-in-law had embittered his existence.

Even now the old gentleman barely vouchsafed him a greeting.  After he had asked about his son, called himself a ruined man, and upbraided the knight with insulting harshness because his brothers—­the news had been brought to him a short time before—­were the robbers who had seized his goods, and the old countess had chimed in with the exclamation, “They are all just fit for the executioner’s block!” Seitz could restrain himself no longer; nay, it gave him actual pleasure to show these hated people what he had done, on his part, to add to their embarrassments.  He was no orator, but now resentment loosened his tongue, and with swift, scornful words he told Herr Casper that, as the son-in-law of a house which liked to represent itself as immensely rich, he had borrowed from others what—­ he was justified in believing