“Tell him to leave me in peace!” cried Herr Ernst vehemently.  Els tried to intercede for the servant, but her father pressed both hands over his ears, exclaiming:  “Who can reach a decision when he is out of his senses himself?  Let the man come to-morrow, or the day after.  Whoever may call, I will see no one, and don’t wish to know who is here.”

But the peace and solitude for which he longed seemed denied him.  A few hours after he left the chamber of death he was obliged to go to the Town Hall on business which could not be deferred; and when, shortly before sunset, he returned home and locked himself into his own room, old Eysvogel again appeared.

He looked pale and agitated, and ordered the manservant—­who denied him admittance as he had been directed—­to call Jungfrau Els.  His voice trembled as he entreated her to persuade her father to see him again.  The matter in question was the final decision of the fate of his ancient house, of Wolff, and also her own and her marriage with his son.  Perhaps the death of his beloved wife might render her father’s mood more gentle.  He did not yet know all Now he must learn it.  If he again said “No,” it would seal the ruin of the Eysvogel firm.

How imploringly he could plead! how humbly the words fell from the old merchant’s lips, moving Els to her inmost heart as she remembered the curt inflexibility with which, only yesterday, this arrogant man, in that very spot, had refused any connection with the Ortliebs!  How much it must cost him to bow his stiff neck before her, who was so much younger, and approach her father, whose heart he had so pitilessly trampled under foot, in the character of a supplicant for aid, perhaps a beggar!

Besides, Wolff was his son!

Whatever wrong the father had done her she must forget it, and the task was not difficult; for now—­she felt it—­no matter from what motive, he honestly desired to unite her to his son.  If her lover now led her through the door adorned with the huge, showy escutcheon, she would no longer come as a person unwillingly tolerated, but as a welcome helper-perhaps as the saviour of the imperilled house.  Of the women of the Eysvogel family she forbade herself to think.

How touching the handsome, aristocratic, grey-haired man seemed to her in his helpless weakness!  If her father would only receive him, he would find it no easier than she to deny him the compassion he so greatly needed.

She knocked at the lonely mourner’s door and was admitted.

He was sitting, with his head bowed on his hands, opposite to the large portrait of her dead mother in her bridal robes.  The dusk of the gathering twilight concealed the picture, but he had doubtless gazed long at the lovely features, and still beheld them with his mental vision.

Els was received with a mournful greeting; but when Herr Ernst heard what had brought her to him, he fiercely commanded her to tell Herr Casper that he would have nothing more to do with him.