He assented impatiently. For the second time he fancied he heard that cry of distress rise above the hubbub outside.
"You have entered into the inheritance of your father?"
"Can there be any doubt in the matter?"
"God knows! None."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean you have only too quickly appropriated that which was his unlawful possession."
"Herr Pastor----" But he could not go on. He felt a choking sensation in his throat, and a stony horror creep over him.
"Where is your spirit?" he asked himself; "your boasted defiance?"
"You found a woman, Herr Baron, on your estate who had been your father's mistress. You found her degraded, defiled, dragged through the mire of wickedness and vice. Year-long slavery had robbed her of the respect of every living creature. She was treated as a mere animal by animals. This wretched woman belonged to my parish and to me. I reared her in the way she should go. It was my hand that sprinkled the baptismal water on her brow; my hand that held the chalice to her lips at the Holy Sacrament; and I promised and vowed before God, and in presence of my flock, to watch over this young soul; doubly orphaned, because he who generated her was not responsible for his actions."
"Ah, my poor orphaned child!" maundered the carpenter. "Only two, only one other coffin ..."