It was a singular coincidence that on the very same day and almost at the self-same hour another of the friends placed the decision of his happiness or misery in a woman's hands, and received no more consoling reply, nay was rejected in still more mysterious language than Edwin.

It happened thus. Mohr had gone to the little house on the lagune, as indeed he did every day, to inquire about FrÄulein Christiane's health. Neither he or any other man had seen her since the night of the accident; for she had positively refused even to receive Marquard, who had saved her life. She sat in the small room behind the kitchen, which the old maid-servant had given up to her; the single grated window looked out upon the canal and the bare, blackened chimney. Here she bolted herself in and opened the door only at Leah's knock, but remained mute even to her kindly inquiries, and during the first day sat like a statue on the stool by the window, with her eyes intently fixed upon the sullen waters below. It seemed as if she considered herself in a self-chosen prison, separated from the world for life. She touched none of the food her nurse brought, except a little soup and bread, and the only time she had spoken was on the third day, when she asked for some work. Since that time sitting always in the same place, she had sewed from early morning until late at night, mended underclothing, hemmed handkerchiefs, and answered all the young girl's timid entreaties and questions only by a pressure of the hand and a gloomy shake of the head.

The same cheerless report was all that could be given today. The night before, Leah had glided into the kitchen, listened at the door of the room, and heard the poor thing moving restlessly to and fro, perhaps to warm herself, for it was cold and she had refused to have a fire lighted in the little stove. She had often groaned like one suffering the deepest pain, and vainly striving to repress any manifestation of it. Midnight was long past before all was still.

"What will happen if God in his mercy does not perform a miracle and let a ray of his love and peace illumine the poor darkened soul!" exclaimed the little artist, with a deep sigh. "Oh! my child, don't you see I was right in saying that all earthly paths lead to darkness and error, unless we humbly strive to seize God's hand and walk by his side? This poor lost life! God forgive me, but I can scarcely help agreeing with the Herr Doctor: who can tell whether it was well for her, that we took so much trouble to recall her to existence?"

Leah was standing beside her painting table, with her pale face bent toward the floor. She made no reply. Her heart was so heavy with her own griefs and those of others, that had it not been for her father, she would fain have wished herself out of the world.

"My honored friends," said Mohr, rising from his chair, where puffing huge clouds of smoke from his cigarette he had sat for some time absorbed in thought, "I too am of the opinion that something must be done; we have given the mercy of God ample time to work a miracle. Perhaps that mercy is held in abeyance; perhaps God is waiting to see whether we will not ourselves move in the matter and assail the difficulty with our poor human powers. And to do this, I at least, a tolerably obstinate heathen,--no offense, Herr KÖnig--am fully resolved."

"What are you going to do?" asked Leah, looking up in alarm.

Mohr stretched his herculean frame, as he was in the habit of doing, when after long consideration he had formed some definite resolution. For a moment his muscular arms almost touched the ceiling, then he buried his hands in his bushy hair and said, half closing his eyes and drawing his mouth awry:

"This Marquard may understand his trade well enough, so far as the body is concerned, but rubbing the limbs is not all that can be done. The soul, which has been just as much benumbed by the accident, must also be warmed by spiritual friction and moral mustard plasters; for in its desperation it is still freezing in its death-like torpor, while the body is already rejoicing in the flow of the thawed blood. I'll go in and apply to this apparently dead soul, some of the restoratives we ought to have tried long ago."

"She will not admit you," said Leah with a sorrowful shake of the head, "and even if--have I not done everything in my power, by kind words and the most sincere good will--"

"Certainly, my dear FrÄulein, but that's just it: you've handled her with gloves. I--now, I will try a ruder way. Devil take it! no offense, Herr KÖnig, but really the evil one, if there is such a person, would laugh in his sleeve and with good reason, if we let this poor soul, which we've toiled so hard to snatch from his clutches, fall back into them for want of aid. Here it's force against force, and a little cunning into the bargain; if you'll knock, FrÄulein Leah, and say you want to come in and then let me step before you--such an innocent stratagem will never be imputed to you as a sin."

"I fear it will be useless," replied Leah, "even if it does actual harm. At least I--but perhaps I don't understand." She went out, and Mohr, with awkwardly feigned liveliness, followed her on tip-toe as if bent upon some mischievous prank. Yet the hands he passed through his hair trembled. When Leah knocked at the chamber door, a scarcely audible voice within asked: "Who's there?"

"I, dear Christiane," replied the young girl, "and I wanted to ask if you would allow--here is--"

At this moment the bolt was drawn back, and Mohr, without the slightest ceremony, passed Leah and entered the half open door.

"Here's some one else," he said finishing Leah's sentence, "who would like to inquire about FrÄulein Christiane's health. Pardon an old friend, that cannot endure to be always shut out by locks and bolts. By Styx, my honored friend, you've not chosen the most cheerful quarters. This dark cage is uncommonly well adapted to give the blues."

Christiane was speechless. At the entrance of Mohr, who instantly closed the door behind him, she had started violently and fled to the grated window, where she stood motionless, with her arms folded over her breast and her eyes cast down; she almost seemed to be asleep. The jesting tone died on his lips, as he saw the death-like pallor of her face and the expression of hopeless suffering that dwelt about her mouth and eyes. As he approached nearer and tried to take her hand, she drew still closer to the window, sank into the chair which stood beside it, and with averted face and shuddering limbs motioned him away. An inexpressible compassion took possession of him.

"FrÄulein Christiane," he said when he partially recovered from the shock of such a meeting, "my visit is unwelcome to you; I'm sincerely sorry, but the reasons for my intrusion are far too grave for me to take leave of you at once, as well-bred people usually do under such circumstances. The more quietly you listen, the sooner you'll get rid of me. Will you listen?"

"No!" at last burst hoarsely from her scarcely-parted lips. "Go--leave me--I've nothing to hear or say!"

"Allow me to doubt that," he answered with apparent composure. "For in the first place you are ill. The wisest sick people don't know what's good for them, they are in a certain sense irresponsible beings. Whether you have anything to say to me, I do not know, but I, have a great deal to say to you. To begin without circumlocution: I know you're angry with me, because I prevented you from accomplishing your purpose and turning you back on this world, which for some unknown reason, you wished to quit. Do you know why I took this liberty? Not from common philanthropy. I should beware of grabbing the coat tail of the first person I might see making the leap. No, my dear FrÄulein, what I did for you I did from common selfishness; for if you were no longer in this world, it would lose it charms for me, like a quartette from which the first violin was missing. Pardon the not very clever comparison, but while your face is so ungraciously averted, I'm glad if I can even patch my sentences together, without making any pretensions to style." She still remained silent, with her forehead pressed against the bare wall and her hands convulsively clasped.

"I don't know for what you have taken me so far," he continued in a smothered voice, as he leaned, against one of the bed posts and secretly wiped his forehead, although the room was by no means warm. "Probably you've not had quite so bad an opinion of me, as I of myself, since I was vain enough to put my best foot forward as far as possible. One thing however, you do not know: as a man I may be a tolerably useless, superfluous and ill-made individual: but as a poodle I'm remarkable. The few persons to whom I attach myself can never shake me off, no matter what they do, or whether I'm agreeable or disagreeable to them. And therefore, I must inform you, that it will be useless to reject me, ill-treat me, or even plunge into the water again to get rid of me; the poodle will leap in after you and bring you out again, even if he's obliged to do it with his teeth.

"I know that if you were to vouchsafe me a word, you would ask by what right I intrude upon you, what you are to me, why I annoy you with the information of my poodle qualities? Dear FrÄulein, I might answer that I can no more give you a reason than the poodle could in the same situation; it is mere instinct. But a still better reply would be this: the misfortune of my life, dear friend, has been that I've always done everything by halves. It grieves me deeply, that this time also, in saving your life, I seem to have only half succeeded, and therefore I wish to see if I cannot complete my task, if I devote to it all my energies, my small portion of brains and heart and my large share of obstinacy.

"Don't be offended by the not very choice mode I take of expressing myself, dear Christiane! You may believe that I'm in the most solemn earnest. Do you know what I told the brothers in the tun, when I first saw you and received that well merited dismissal you gave? I said that you were a whole-hearted woman, for whom I had a great respect. And this respect I still feel, and because I believe you to be one of the rare women, to whom an honest man may without the slightest peril offer his heart and hand--"

"Hush! Oh! for God's sake, hush!" she interrupted, starting from her rigid immobility. "Go, go--say no more--each word is like a red hot needle piercing my wounded flesh. You don't know--you shall never know--"

"Nonsense, dear FrÄulein! I shall never know! As if I wanted to know anything, as if anything I could learn would be able to change my opinion of you! No, my honored friend, that would not be a poodle's trait. His master may steal spoons, may be the saviour of his native land; it makes no difference to the dog, he licks his hand with equal respect. The motive you had for taking that premature cold bath, I shall never ask to know in this world. Of course you were not entirely yourself, you had been tasting some of the bitter wormy apples, that hung on the tree of knowledge, and the cramps which ensued appeared unendurable. So be it! That belongs to the past, you've rid yourself of the indigestion by a violent remedy, and can gradually regain a taste for the household fare life serves up on an average. Isn't this clear to you, best, dearest of all artists? You would not be what you are, would not play Beethoven as you do, if you had passed by all the abysses and thorney hedges of this life safe and untorn."

He waited a short time for some reply; then he tried again to approach her window, but she turned away with a shrinking gesture, as if he would be degraded should his hands touch hers.

"No, no, no!" she cried in a stifled voice. "You think a thousand times too well of me. I--oh! there's nothing that less deserves to live, that is less able to endure life, than the wretched creature for whom you, self-sacrificing as you are,--but no, draw back your hand; you don't know whom you wish to raise."

"Is it so?" he said quietly. Then we must call things by their right names, that we may understand each other. Statistics and public opinions unite in saying, that of all the women who arbitrarily seek to leave the world, nine-tenths seek death from misplaced affection, deceived, unrequited, or hopeless passion. Should your case be one of these, the common prejudices of the world cannot prevent me from placing my love at your disposal. I know you never can have done anything base, half way, contemptible, which alone could degrade you in my eyes, because it would destroy and give the lie to the image of you which I cherish in my heart. Even if a misplaced love had led you into the arms of an unworthy man, and indignant anguish at a piece of knavish treachery, devilish villainy--He suddenly paused, startled by the fixed, almost Medusa-like gaze, with which she looked him in the face.

"I thank you," she answered mournfully. "'Devilish villainy' the words are apt, very apt. It's only a pity that I can't tell you why they are so. But that--that no lips would utter, save in madness, and unfortunately madness will not yet come to me. Perhaps if I repeat the words over and over, reflect how well they apply--but no, Fate is not so compassionate! Into the mire with the worm, should it show any desire to crawl. But to crush it, to give it the death blow--ah no! that would be far too humane, too magnanimous for an adorable Providence. Fie, how bitter this earth taste becomes on the tongue!"

She shuddered, then started from her straw chair as if some strange power had rudely shaken her. "Can you still remain!" she exclaimed. "Don't you feel that I must hate you more than any other human being, just because you have restored me to myself, hurled me back to the fate I thought I had escaped? It is such a refinement of mockery, that you should come with your kind, warm-hearted desire to aid me now, when there's nothing more to be saved. Ha! ha! ha! Perhaps if you stay here a little longer, madness may come. Then you would have rendered a service, which would atone for much. Won't you sit down? We'll have a little music--a few false notes more or less--pshaw, what will it matter? The harmony of the spheres will not be interrupted. Well? Don't you like the idea? Why are you silent?"

"Christiane," said he, and the tone of his voice revealed a firm, inexorable purpose, "I will take my disagreeable face out of your sight--for to-day! But rely upon it; you will see me again. You do not know, cannot suspect what means a brave, honest man can summon to aid him in healing wounds that seem to be mortal. Christiane, despite all you have told me, I cannot give you up, cannot leave you to yourself; and this terrible, incomprehensible fate of which you speak--only give me time to struggle with it; I think I'm the stronger. Your life belongs to me. You threw it away, and I, the honest finder, restore it to you--if you despise it, it's mine. Only give me time! Only promise me--"

"Nothing," she exclaimed with savage resolution, by which she strove to arm herself against his beseeching words. "My life is over. You will never--never see me again!" She turned away and hid her face in both hands, which she pressed against the iron bars. After a pause she heard him say: "So be it; I will go. But every word I have said stands fast. Henceforth your life is mine. I'll see who'll tear it from me." Then he left the room. Leah and her father were waiting for him in the sitting room. He passed on in silence, as if he did not see them, and the expression of his face was so gloomy and menacing that neither ventured to accost him.