"To be together in a small house is particularly jolly," cried Gabriel, boldly. "Ah, Dorchen! if we could venture to think of it."
Again a slight rumble was heard.
"There must be something here," cried Dorchen. "I am so alarmed!"
She sprang away from him to the middle of the room. Gabriel took a yard measure, and looked under the furniture.
"So you are there, are you?" he cried, angrily, poking with the yard measure under the sofa.
Spitehahn leaped forth with a bark on to the nearest chair, from the chair on to the console, on which the clock stood; he knocked down the clock, and dashed through the half-opened door.
It was the parlor clock and a wedding present. Mr. Hahn wound it up every evening before he went to bed; it had two alabaster pillars with gilded capitals; the rest was of American wood, and represented a triumphal arch. Now the treasure lay in ruins, the pillars shattered, the woad broken, and the dial split. In the opened works a single wheel whirled with fearful rapidity, all the rest was motionless. Dorchen stood dismayed before the fragments, and wrung her hands.
"The monster," groaned Gabriel, occupying himself in vain with the shattered work of art, and endeavoring with no better result to comfort the poor maiden, who trembled before the terrors of the ensuing hour.
"I had a foreboding," cried Mr. Hahn, on his return home, "that something would happen to-day. I forgot yesterday, for the first time, to wind up the clock. But now my patience is at an end; there will be war to the knife between him over the way and me." He approached the sobbing maid threateningly. "Bear witness to the truth," he cried out; "the court will demand your testimony. Do not seek safety in hypocrisy and lies. Was it the dog, or was it you?"
Dorchen dramatically related the whole transgression of Spitehahn; she poked under the sofa, as if she could draw the dog out bodily; she confessed, weepingly, to the open door, and explained Gabriel's presence as owing to an inquiry he had made of her.