"Helen, you look pale; and you have been crying! What does that mean? Do you love that man? Must I lose my last child then?"
"Be calm, mamma. I shall not leave you in our misfortune. There is the letter to the princess. One moment, mother."
She sat down and wrote in great haste a few lines.
"Well, that is done! I am free once more! Come, mamma; I will show you that I have still strength and courage enough for life. Come!"
And she drew the baroness, who willingly yielded herself up to her daughter's superior energy, with her out of the room.
A minute later the two ladies had left Waldenberg House, and half an hour afterwards the train carried them away from the city.
CHAPTER XVI.
As Oswald hurried down the street, scarcely knowing what he was doing, he felt suddenly some one seize him by the arm. It was Mr. Timm.
After his encounter with Mr. Schmenckel Mr. Timm had been compelled to abandon his post of observation near the princess's house in order to go into the courtyard of one of the adjoining houses, and there wash off the blood which the director's weighty fist had drawn from mouth and nose. Timm was as angry as he had ever been in his life. It was the rage of the hunter when he sees a wild beast tearing his cunningly-woven nets and escaping from his most ingenious trap. This booby of a Schmenckel, with his stupid honesty! How he had worked at the man to dazzle him with golden prospects; and now! It was enough to turn a man's brain! The glorious fortune all lost! And why? For nothing but a fit of honesty! And if Oswald, too, should be such a fool! These blockheads can never be left alone for a moment! And just now the bleeding will not stop! What enormous strength that fellow has!
Thus it came that the martyr of stupid honesty saw neither Mr. Schmenckel nor the prince leave the house, nor Oswald go in, and he was now also but just in time to overtake the latter as he was rather running than walking down the street.