The lamp was not yet lighted, and the broad brim of her straw hat shadowed her face, yet all three noticed, though no one made any remark, that the young wife's features were strangely rigid and inanimate, like the face of a person who has endured severe sorrow and, with a certain savage indifference, is prepared for the worst.

She nodded to Reginchen, begged her in her usual tone not to disturb herself, and declining the chair the old man placed at the table, sat down in the window niche, with her face half averted. In reply to the question about her headache, she answered that it had passed away entirely. She had taken a nap, then eaten her dinner, and had never felt better than now, so she had thought of Papa Feyertag's proposal again, and determined to accept it.

"What proposal?" asked Reginchen. The old man himself would have been sorely puzzled if he had been obliged to answer the question. But Leah replied in his stead.

"For," she hastily burst forth, "what better could I do? My father is old and does not like to travel. Edwin, will not return until the end of the week; I've nothing to detain me here, and who knows when I shall find another such opportunity. How long is it before the train starts? A whole hour? Well, you must allow my presence here until then. At home--it's ridiculous--but I think if I had remained at home, my headache would have come on again. We're so weak, so irresolute when we're all alone, and yet nothing can be more sensible than this plan. Edwin himself, if he were here--but no, then I should not be alone. You say nothing, Herr Feyertag. Do you repent having offered to be my escort? I'll not make you the slightest trouble, you can smoke and sleep as much as you choose, I--I'll go in the ladies' coupÉ, I hope to be able to sleep too; after such a headache as I've had all day, I am not very entertaining in conversation."

"How can you think of such a thing?" said the old man. Then all were silent for a long time. Nothing was heard but the clicking of a little pair of scissors, which Leah had taken from Reginchen's work table and was opening and shutting.

"Before I forget it," Leah carelessly remarked, "as it's possible Edwin may return a few days before me, I've written him a few lines. If meantime a letter should come from him containing his address, or he himself should arrive--at any rate, you'll doubtless do me the favor to see that this note reaches him."

"Give it to me, Leah dear," said Reinhold rising. "Father, will you have another glass of wine? But you're not eating anything."

"It's not my time. And your famous dinner--Well, I'll go and look after my baggage. I've only to shut my little trunk."

He hastily rose--he evidently did not understand matters--and left the room.

Reinhold had also risen. He had put the little note which Leah had given him, in his pocket and now said: "I'll accompany you to the station of course. I must first give some business directions, but I'll come back again directly." He exchanged a significant glance with his wife, and left the room. The two women were now alone, Reginchen on the sofa in the dark corner, Leah at the window with her back turned toward the room.

"Have you nothing else for me to do, dearest Leah?" asked the little housekeeper after a pause.

"Nothing, Ginchen. What should I have? I leave no children behind, and Edwin's books require no care. The cook will water the flowers. But you--your mother--hark! Didn't the clock strike eight?"

"Seven. There's still a full hour--Leah--"

"What is it, child?"

"Have you reflected upon this?"

"What a strange question to ask? What is there to consider? A journey to my parents! one falls asleep here, and on awaking finds oneself at home."

"At home, Leah?"

There was no answer from the window. No one who could have obtained even a side view of the face gazing fixedly out, would have expected these compressed lips, that seemed with difficulty to repress a groan, to open for any intelligible answer.

Suddenly two arms embraced the motionless figure, and a fair head in a neat little cap nestled to the pale cheek of the silent friend. "Leah," whispered Reginchen's voice, "if you love me, don't do it, don't go away; it can't be the right thing; or at least speak plainly first. What, for God's sake, what has happened, to drive you away so suddenly, as if--as if you were not at home here."

She covered the eyes and cheeks of the rigid face with the tenderest kisses. The next instant Leah gently released herself.

"I don't know what you mean," she said coldly. "You're childish in your anxiety about me. What should have happened? Let me alone, little goosey. I know what I'm doing only too well; that this is the best, the only thing, now I'm all alone--"

"You're right, dear Leah," they heard Reinhold's voice suddenly exclaim. "Don't listen to this foolish woman, who can't believe any one can leave home for pleasure--that's what she means by not right. But we still have half an hour; I should like to speak to you; I have a little commission to be done in Berlin, with which I didn't want to trouble Father."

"Willingly, dear Reinhold."

"But I must beg you to take the trouble to come up to my little attic room; I cannot tell you here, partly because we are liable to be interrupted at any moment, and partly because I keep what's necessary for the errand up there. Light the little lantern, child; I believe you've never been up in our garret--true, it's an old rat's nest, but as I'd not a corner in the whole house where I can work or think quietly away from the children, I furnished a room there."

Reginchen had taken a brass lantern from the cupboard and lighted the lamp in it. As she now handed it to her husband, these three who were so fondly attached to each other, for the first time dared not look each other in the face. The little wife cast down her eyes without uttering a syllable. Leah had risen, still in her hat and traveling cloak, as she had come. Reinhold's honest face looked strange and gloomy, framed in its black hair and bushy beard.

He silently took the lantern from Reginchen, and preceded Leah up the narrow, time begrimmed staircase that led to the store rooms. He did not address a word to her as she followed close behind him. Not until they had walked through a large portion of the garret, across whose ceiling ran heavy beams, and he had turned the key in the door of a low room, did he pause a moment and say: "I'm taking you into my holy of holies, Leah."

Then he opened it, crossed the threshold with the light, and allowed her also to enter.

At the first glance it seemed a mere attic chamber, like hundreds of others, only perhaps somewhat higher, but as if to make amends for this the roof sloped the more, the ancient beams, which supported it, seeming no longer able to do their duty. But as Franzelius set the lantern on the little black stove and lighted a small lamp, Leah saw that the walls were covered with neat grey paper, and the few articles of furniture were kept scrupulously free from dust. The whole end of the room before the window was filled with something which she did not instantly recognize. When the lamplight penetrated to the window, she perceived that it was a turning lathe, and she instantly knew why this awkward piece of furniture stood in Reinhold's holy of holies. He seemed to use it for a writing table; a portfolio, books, and writing materials lay upon it, all in the neatest order. On the right and left of the single deep window niche, where in the daytime scarcely a ray of light could fall, two wide carved brackets were fastened to the wall. The one on the left bore the mask of Michael Angelo's prisoner, the other a square object, like a small box, covered with a cloth. The room contained no other furniture, except a small book-case and two plain cane chairs.

"Won't you sit down, dear Leah?" asked the silent guide, after he had set down the lamp on the stove beside the lantern. He did not look at her, but she saw that the hand which had held the little lamp trembled.

"Thank you," she replied, "I'm not tired. Tell me the commission you wanted to give me."

"Commission? I have none; pardon me, dear friend, it was only a paltry excuse; didn't you see through it at once: And besides, if I had anything to be done in Berlin, I could not entrust it to you--for you'll not go there yourself."

"Why do you attempt to dissuade me? Don't trouble yourself. I've made up my mind; I think I know what I am doing."

Notwithstanding her refusal, she sat down, as if absorbed in thought, in the chair he had placed for her, and diligently thrust the point of her parasol into a hole in the floor, seeming for a moment to forget everything around her.

"You've made up your mind?" he said with a very sorrowful face. "Of course you're mistress of your own actions. But in that case I must tell you that I have also made up my mind, not to give your letter to Edwin."

"You've read it? Oh Reinhold!" A hasty, indignant glance from her eyes met his. The next instant she lowered them to the ground in confusion.

"I have not read it," he said gravely. "Here it is; convince yourself that that the seal is unbroken. But it is just the same as if I had." She started up and moved toward the door, but suddenly paused halfway.

"Do not go," he pleaded. "There's time enough for that, when you've listened to what I have to say. Tell me frankly: can you expect me, when Edwin returns, to give him a letter in which his wife informs him, that she has left him, because she can no longer live beneath his roof?"

"Would I have said that? Would I have said it so? Now I ask you to open the letter, Reinhold, that you may see what I have told him."

"I thank you for your confidence, dear friend, but I will not read the letter which you will soon reproach yourself for having written. Besides, I know very nearly what you've said, to palliate what you're about to do to him--and yourself."

"Palliate? What I'm about to do is for his good; what it costs me no one knows."

She had sunk down into the chair, with her forehead pressed against the back; a shudder seemed to convulse her slight frame.

"Will you not bestow upon me the same confidence he has given?" she heard Franzelius ask after a pause. "True, his friendship is of an older date, but when you became his wife, it seemed to me as if I had loved you from childhood as my sister. Dear Leah, he has told me all he told you. And do you think so old a friend cannot feel how much suffering this heavy trial causes you?" She suddenly looked him full in the face, her features no longer distorted by passion, but an expression of such hopeless grief rested on her brow and lips, that he shrank back in alarm.

"He told you all? Yes, all he knew of his own heart. What could he have said to you of mine? What does he know about it? True, it's not his fault. I've always been ashamed to unbosom myself, to confess how I idolize him, how madly I love him. It might be unwelcome to him, I thought, since he--well, you know, for you're his friend; what he said about his 'intellectual love' sounded so pretty, very pretty for a philosopher and commendable for his wife also, if she had as much philosophy in her head as he expected, and no unbridled, tumultuous heart, that refused to listen to reason. 'If he should perceive,' I thought, 'that I have my mother's blood in my veins, hot, old-testament blood--perhaps he'll discover that he made a great mistake in thinking he could make a "sensible marriage" with such a nature, as a consolation for a lost love.' And then I also thought: 'who knows what may happen? Perhaps the day will come when I can tell him all, because he himself will no longer be satisfied with a modest happiness, but ask something prouder, higher, more enthusiastic, and then I can say to him: "you need not seek far, still waters run deep; you've yet to know your own wife, with whom you have lived so long unsuspicious of her true nature."' I was going to say it to him when he returned from this pedestrian tour; it seemed to me, from his letters, as if the last spark of the old fire had burned out, and he was longing for a new passion, a fervent love, which would completely engulf him, and after four years of married life, he now, for the first time, loved me with a new, yearning, longing affection. It gave me such delight. But I was rightly served; my weakness or delusion, or whatever it may have been--must be punished. Why did I not confess to him at once, that I should be miserable if he only chose me for his wife on account of my few intellectual qualities? Why did I not tell him I, too, must have all or nothing, and was far less suited for a 'sensible marriage,' than many a far more foolish creature? Now my fate has overtaken me--and his, him--and you want, by means of a few friendly, sensible arguments to heal the breech which has burst open again, the breech which ought never to have been closed."

She had arisen, and was pacing excitedly up and down the narrow room, while he sat silently on one corner of the turning lathe with his head bowed on his breast.

"You're slandering, Leah!" he said in a hollow tone. "You're slandering his heart."

"His heart?" she passionately replied. "Has he a heart he can call his? Oh! don't suppose I'm reproaching him for the lack of it! Yesterday I often thought--ought the remembrance of all the grave and joyous, pleasant and painful things we have shared together for four years, to be utterly effaced and blown away? Had not his heart been animated and warmed by mine till both beat in unison, in all questions of life great and small? You see, I thought so yesterday; today I no longer hold the same opinion, but find the present state of thing perfectly natural."

"To-day--what has happened to-day, that has so suddenly--"

She approached him till she stood close by his side, and without raising her eyes to his, whispered in an undertone: "To-day I've made her acquaintance."

"What? Then the veiled lady--"

"Came in search of him and found only me. Don't you agree with me, Reinhold, that under these circumstances it's quite time for the wife to go away, that the husband may be at home when such an agreeable visitor arrives?"

"Leah! What are you saying? You don't know how you wrong him. He--what did he know about her mad plan? And if he had been aware of it, would he not have gone away just at the right time to baffle it?"

"Yes indeed," she nodded with a bitter expression on her face, "he would have fled from his fate to-day and to-morrow until it should overtake him at last. No, my friend, I do not wrong him; I know how he suffers, and I also know that it will be no disgrace if he succumbs. I have never seen such a woman; will you believe that I, who had good reasons for hating her, could not help loving her; not merely thinking her charming, more charming than I have ever thought any of my own sex before, but liking, loving her! Or no, I will not say too much; but I understand how people cannot help loving her unless they have reasons for hating her as strong as mine."

"Did she make herself known to you?"

"Not by a single syllable. But as soon as she entered the door, even before she threw back her veil, I knew it was she! She cast a hasty glance around the room, a glance that sought him. If I had not been dazzled and fascinated by her appearance, I should have said at once: 'He's not here. Countess, you've come in vain.' But I was silent, and allowed her to speak first, and then, when I had heard her voice, it was too late. She asked for me, she wanted to find some pretext for remaining until he returned, and I secretly admired her presence of mind. She had seen some of my paintings in the house of a lady acquaintance in Berlin, she said, and was so much pleased with them, that while on a journey she had stopped in the city, to make my acquaintance and learn whether she might hope to possess some of my work, she did not care what, a plate with fruit painted on it, a vase, or a flower piece in oils.

"At first her voice trembled, then she grew calmer and threw back her veil. Oh! I understood her perfectly. She was now convinced that she had nothing to fear from me, that the insignificant creature before her could make no pretensions to offer any compensation for the happiness virtuously disdained by the man, to whom she stood ready to give herself. And she was right, I instantly said to myself. Must I, if unhappy be so foolish also, as to deceive myself? And precisely because I instantly lost all hope, I obtained the composure and clearness of mind which I should not have preserved if either hope or defiance had lingered in my heart. I answered her without the least embarrassment, and showed her my portfolio, telling her that I now only painted for my own amusement and gave my productions to my friends. 'Then of course I have no hope of obtaining anything?' she said. I made no reply. Was I to lie, by saying courteously that it would afford me pleasure to do her a friendly service? But she did not expect it. She sat silently on the sofa, and there was a long pause in the conversation between us. Her eyes--what beautiful eyes she has!--wandered slowly and absently around the room. 'Your husband works there!' she said at last, pointing to his desk. 'And you sit yonder, close beside him, and it does not disturb him?' She sighed involuntarily. Probably for a moment it seemed to her as if she were destroying something that was good and beautiful and worthy of existence. I could look at her closely. I don't know now how I had the heart to do so. But she was so charming! 'Those eyes,' I said to myself, 'have stolen your happiness, those red, full lips have kissed him, drawn away from him all power to be happy with another woman.' Strange as it was I sat there beside her, wishing I was lying a hundred fathoms under the earth, and Edwin was sitting in my place. Then I was angry with myself that I could be so impartial, so terribly just, instead of looking at her with jealous rage and anger, for which I really had good cause. 'She has come to triumph over you,' cried a voice in my soul. 'She wants to outshine you, to tear him away from you before your eyes, and you sit beside her and all you feel is a sense of inexpressible sorrow.' I was beginning to hate myself, that I could offer no better resistance to this magic. Then, without the slightest pretext, she suddenly began to talk of my husband, inquired about him like a perfect stranger, who had only seen him casually, and read more things about him than by him. I don't know how it was--I ought to have been too proud to speak of him, at least as I did, as we only pour out to an intimate friend the deepest feelings of the heart about a person we love. But I probably thought I owed it to myself, to show that I was well aware what I had possessed and must lose in him. So I said just what came into my mind, and she sat nodding silently, without uttering a syllable, until I had talked myself in to an excited mood, and suddenly paused with some commonplace apology. My heart throbbed almost to bursting. The bitter anguish of the fact that we should be on such terms, suddenly burst upon me. God knows what I was about to say, when she rose, drew off her glove, and held out her hand, which in my bewilderment I actually took. 'Thank you,' said she. 'How much I should like to stay longer, for I see we understand each other in many things. But I must go, or I shall be missed. Farewell, dear wife, may you be happy. Think often--'

"She was about to add something, but her voice failed. Suddenly I felt her throw her arms around me and press her beautiful lips three times to mine; then before I could collect my thoughts, she had hurried out of the room and I was alone with my shame and astonishment.

"No, precisely because she is better than I thought, I must make room for her. I know now, for I have experienced it myself--he who has once seen her can never forget her again; he whom she has once kissed, must be her slave. But to be her slave would cause no pain, while other chains--No, no, he shall not bear this burden. I will go away, will not play the base, unworthy part of a third person, who is merely tolerated, secretly wished dead a thousand times. Besides, what is it? Have I not possessed for four years, what must now be restored to the hands of the rightful owner? Am I the first, or shall I be the last woman, in whom a good, generous, noble man has been mistaken, when he supposed she could fill his heart, and at whose feet he now, to the end of his life, wishes to lay his duty, heroic, self-sacrificing? Fie, who can accept such a sacrifice? Not I--not I--by my mother's blood, which lives in me--not I!"

While uttering the last words, she had approached the door and now laid her hand on the lock, saying: "Adieu! It is time--" when Franzelius suddenly stood close beside her, placed his hand gently on her arm, and looking steadily into her face, said:

"And yet notwithstanding all this, you will not go, Leah?"

"Not go? After all you have just heard?"

"No, Leah not even now."

She hastily released herself from his hold, and looked at him with eyes flashing with anger; "I don't understand you, Reinhold. By what right--"

"By what right do I interfere when you want to plunge into an abyss, and drag Edwin with you? Can you ask, Leah? Must I explain to you, as to a total stranger? Well then, I will remind you of what you have forgotten, of him from whom I derive the right to fill a brother's place to you and Edwin, because I promised him to do so, because it was his legacy to me, a legacy, which I hold sacred and will fulfil to my latest breath. If the living fails to persuade you to do your duty, to perceive what your duty is--perhaps the dead may better succeed."

While he uttered these words he had approached the window and hastily removed the covering from the bracket on the right. Under a square glass cover, on a black cushion, lay Balder's death-mask, so warmly illuminated by the lamplight, that the pure features of the beautiful, still countenance, seemed to be animate with life. Leah sank back into the chair in silence. In her first bewilderment she did not venture to open her eyes.

"Take courage to look at him, dear friend," said Reinhold after a long pause; "when you have conquered the first feeling of awe, you will become more and more calm in the presence of this face. Do you not think the resemblance very striking, seen from the side? Edwin's sister we might say. It was thus you saw this noble man for the first and last time--you have never heard his voice, never seen his eyes or his smile--you came too late. But believe me if he were now on earth, he would not have used so many words as I; he would only have looked at you, and to leave Edwin would have seemed impossible."

Still she did not utter a word, but sat on the chair in the middle of the room with both hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes streaming with tears, fixed steadily upon the pale profile. He did not know whether she even heard what he said. But his heart was full and overflowed again.

"No, my friend," said he, "it was an error of your heart, a human weakness, which cannot last in the presence of death--the end of all human joys and sorrows. What, did you intend to leave him alone in the hardest trial of his life? Can you really doubt that he will be truly miserable for the first time, when he loses you? The old disease has attacked him again, but would he have instantly placed himself in your care, if he had not felt that he could only be cured with the aid and under the protection of the old, sacred, eternal powers of true love and faith? And must he now find an empty house, a cold hearth, darkness around him, and the threshold from which hostile spectres are wont to recoil, no longer guarded by good household spirits? And will she, who is about to inflict this pain upon him, attempt to delude herself and him with the fancy that she is making a sacrifice for his sake? For her own sake, she ought to say, for the sake of her pride, her jealous, offended heart, that cannot endure the thought of not making this beloved husband forget every thing beside itself.

"Forgive these harsh words, dear Leah," he pleaded, approaching her and trying to take her hand. "If you were not the woman, whom I have so heartily rejoiced that he obtained for a wife, a woman as high-hearted and brave as himself, perhaps you would be right in what you are doing. One would scarcely dissuade a woman of the ordinary stamp, from making the attempt to bring her husband back to her, by leaving him for a time. But you, dear Leah, ought not to allow any petty arts, any sensitive pouting and reserve, to come between yourself and him. If he has caused you pain, has he not suffered most bitterly himself? Would he have left you again now, if he had not felt how it must torture you to see his condition? He--that I know--feels that he could not be cured anywhere so quickly as near you. If you had heard how he talked to me about you--oh! dear Leah, no man has ever struggled more honestly against the powers of evil, and shall his natural champion, from whose presence he might draw new strength, desert her colors?

"Come. Compose yourself. Turn your eyes away from that glorified face--it moves you too deeply. Oh! dearest Leah, you're not the first who has learned from the dead, what we owe to the living. I've sat in this very chair through many an hour of bitter conflict, when I knew not what to do; and when it has sometimes happened that my dear wife and I did not agree, we came quietly up here, first I, and ere long she, and we soon saw clearly what we ought to do. You know yourself, dear friend, every thing in life is not as plain as a sum in arithmetic, where we only need to write down the fraction that is left over. Therefore we must question our dead, our immortal ones, and they will not leave us long in doubt about the answer."

He had taken both her hands, and was gazing down at her with a look of the tenderest love. She suddenly rose and threw her arms around his neck. "Dear--true--only friend," was all she could falter amid her sobs.

After a time some one knocked gently at the door, and Reginchen's voice said that her father was going and wanted to take leave of Reinhold. As there was no sound from the attic room, the little wife then opened the door and timidly entered.

Reinhold gently released himself from Leah, who was still clinging to him in violent agitation. "Do you take charge of her now," he said to Reginchen, "we shall keep her."

"I knew it, Reinhold," replied the little wife, smiling through her tears; "you don't talk often, but when you do speak, you can move mountains. Has he turned your heart, you naughty woman, when you wouldn't be touched by my fondest words? Now I find her here on the most affectionate terms with my own husband, and must get jealous of my only friend forsooth, in my old age."

Long after Reinhold had left the house and was on his way to the railway station with his father-in-law, who understood nothing about the matter, the two friends remained clasped in each other's arms, Leah seated in the lap of Reginchen, who often pressed her to her heart with almost motherly tenderness. They said nothing, but leaned their heads against each other and looked up to the bracket from which the dead man's gentle face gazed down upon them in pure and calm majesty.