EVERYTHING IN FLAMES.
With lingering step they walked by each other's side, Manna often looking aside to survey the landscape, and yet conscious all the time that Eric was observing her. And then Eric would turn away, still feeling that her eye rested upon him.
"You are happy in possessing the thoughts of such a father," said Manna, feelingly.
Eric could make no reply, for the feeling oppressed him, how the poor rich child would be overwhelmed, if she knew what he did concerning her own father; he had no conception that Manna's words were wrung out by this very tribulation.
"I cannot become the heir of my father's thoughts," he said, after an interval. "Each child must live out his own life."
They continued to walk side by side, and it seemed to them, at every step, that they must stop and hold each other in a loving embrace.
"Roland and my father are now on their way home," said Manna.
"And Herr von Pranken also," Eric was about to add, but refrained from doing it.
Manna perhaps felt that he might think strangely of her omitting to mention Pranken's name, and she asked:—
"Were not you and Baron von Pranken formerly intimate friends?"