"The Professorin was formerly a lady in waiting on the gracious mother of the Prince, and the gracious Princess was very fond of her."
"Very well, very well. And now?"
"Well, now, the Professorin is living there with a horrible man who has deceived the whole world, and is a slave-trader, and one's life isn't safe there a single minute, and now the gracious Princess sends me there, and I am to say to the Professorin—and if she will, to take her along with me at once—that she can be delivered from this monster."
The lackey was astonished to see the man who had questioned him ride away without speaking another word.
Sonnenkamp boiled with rage; but he shortly laughed out loud again.
"That's all right! afraid,—the whole world is afraid of him. This confers strength; this is far better than the silly honor, with which one must behave himself."
He felt a profound contempt for those in high station. Now they take up the neglected widow, now,—why not before?
He rode to the castle. Here were the laborers who were erecting a wing of the building; they saluted their employer with evident reluctance. Sonnenkamp smiled; at any rate, they had to salute him. He would have liked to get the whole world together, in order to look it, once for all, defiantly in the face.
He rode to the Major's. Fräulein Milch was standing at the window, and before he said anything, she called down:—
"The Herr Major is not at home." And now he turned homeward.