Pranken pressed his lips together, but made no reply. It was not the time now to make known what had happened, and the conclusion he had formed. And, when Bella asked him why he seemed so disturbed, he could give no answer.
"Why were you not at the trial? Have you come from Villa Eden? How are they there?" asked Bella.
"I don't know," Pranken finally replied.
Yes, how are they at Villa Eden!
CHAPTER XI.
SMOKE AND DESOLATION AT THE VILLA.
Sonnenkamp sat alone. He seemed to hear in his solitude a crackling, a low, almost inaudible gnawing, like a tongue of flame lapping the beams and joists, devouring more and more, and increasing as it devoured its prey. Such a low crackling, and such a lapping, he believed that he heard in his solitude.
He was mistaken, and yet he was well aware that there was a spark kindled, and it was burning noiselessly; it ran along the floor of the room, it reached the walls; the chairs, the closets, the books, are all on fire; the painted faces on the canvas are grotesquely distorted, and blaze up; and the flames spread on and on, creeping through all the apartments, enveloping at last the roof and the whole house, and flaring up into the sky.
Suppose that one should burn it all up, and every thing in it? No, there is another, a better means of deliverance, an energetic deed, a splendid, grand—here came a knock. It must be Bella coming to explain why she was not there when he returned from the trial to the seed-room. He opened the door quickly, and Weidmann, not Bella, entered.
"Have you any thing to ask me in private?" asked Sonnenkamp angrily.