Yet in Rome and Brussels Wolf had held fast to the conviction that a beloved betrothed bride was awaiting him in Ratisbon.

So long as his foster-parents lived he had had news from them of the Blombergs.  After the death of the old couple, Barbara’s father had answered in a very awkward manner the questions which he had addressed to him in a letter, and his daughter wrote a friendly message under the old captain’s signature.  True, it was extremely brief, but few fiery love letters ever made the recipient happier or were more tenderly pressed to the lips.

The girl he loved still bore the name of Barbara Blomberg.

This outweighed a whole archive of long letters.  The captain, who, for the sake of fighting the infidels, had so sadly neglected his property that his own house in the Kramgasse fell into the hands of his creditors, had rented the second story in the cantor house.  Barbara at that time was very small, but now she had ceased to be a child, and, after she devoted herself earnestly to acquiring the art of singing, the old warrior had undertaken to keep the little chapel in order.

The task certainly seemed strangely ill-suited to the tall, broad-shouldered man with the bushy eyebrows, long beard, and mustache twisted stiffly up at the ends, who had obtained in Tunis and during the Turkish war the reputation of being one of the most fearless heroes, and carried away severe wounds; but he knew how to make scoffers keep their distance, and did not trouble himself at all about other people.

Regularly every evening he went down the stairs and performed the duty he had undertaken with the punctilious care of a neat housewife.

He was a devout man, and did his work there in the hope of pleasing the Holy Virgin, because the reckless old warrior was indebted to her for more than one deliverance from impending death, and because he trusted that she would repay it to him in his child.

Besides, his income was not large enough for him to keep a maid-servant of his own, and he could not expect old Ursel, who had worked for the precentor and his wife, and performed the roughest labour in the third story for a mere “thank you,” to take care of the chapel also.  She had plenty to do, and besides she had been a Protestant three years, and took the Lord’s Supper in a different form.

This would have induced him to break off every connection with his old friend’s maid-servant had not his kind, grateful heart forbidden him to hurt her feelings.  Besides, she was almost indispensable to his daughter and himself; it was difficult enough, in any case, for the nobly born captain to meet the obligations imposed by his position.

He now received only a very small portion of the profits of the lumber trade which had supported his ancestors, his father, and himself very handsomely, for he had been compelled to mortgage his share in the business.