A silent night of anxious, breathless suspense ensued upon this horrible day. No one went to bed; the gas was lighted all over the house, the servants glided noiselessly about on tiptoe, or huddled whispering in corners, and when some fireman passed near the house, or a door was softly opened, all started as from an electric shock and hurried into the corridors, sure that some intelligence would be brought of the master of the house. But the night waned, and the dawn peeped in at the windows,—he never, never came.

The rosy light of a glorious morning shone upon Villa Baumgarten, making the broken window-panes glitter and shine. It entered the ball-room and kindled the crimson of the fallen canopy, it kissed the fading leaves of the festoons of green and the broken boughs of the plants brought from the conservatory;—what chaos reigned there! One single minute had converted the costly but frail "Arabian Nights' Entertainment" into a heap of ruins and fragments. The charming verses in praise of the bride were unspoken, and upon the spot where the bespangled genius should have hovered in a rosy cloud, the keen morning breeze toyed mockingly with shreds of pink and white tulle.

It was the first time, perhaps, that the light of dawn had seen these splendid interiors; no shutter had been closed, no shade drawn down,—it even stared in upon the gorgeous bedroom in the northeastern angle of the building, upon the violet silk draperies, the richly-carved bedstead covered with lace, and it might mirror itself in the diamonds strewn among the puffs of the Frau President's hair. The maid had not dared to offer her services to the old lady, who now and then would totter through the long suite of apartments, dragging after her her heavy yellow train among overturned furniture and statues toppled from their pedestals.

The cloud of tulle which she always wore about her neck and chin had become loosened, and the sharp, withered outline of the lower portion of her face and of the throat was painfully evident. Yes, she was very old, and the sun of her life was low on the horizon; nevertheless, her aged brain was busy with but one absorbing thought, "Who is Moritz's heir?" She herself had not the slightest claim upon the wealth of the man so suddenly snatched away, not even upon the bed in which she slept or the plate from which she ate. The councillor had been early left an orphan; so far as she knew, he had no existing relatives of his name; but had he not continually sent a subsistence to a sister of his mother's living on the Rhine? Would she inherit his wealth? The idea was maddening. The wife of an obscure clerk, a needy seamstress, would then take possession of this colossal fortune, and the Frau President Urach, who for years had not been able to conceive how any one could move without silken-cushioned equipages, how any one could dine without lackeys in waiting, or sleep unless in a bed canopied with silk, would have to rout out her old furniture from the garrets whither it had been banished, and hire narrow lodgings where there were no stables filled with horses, no liveried servants and princely mÉnage, for neither she nor her granddaughters were connected by any tie of blood with the millionaire who had gone out of the world intestate.

The guests invited from the neighbourhood had remained with the old lady until midnight, and, although no distinct mention had been made of this subject, there had not been lacking allusions to the business complications that must ensue upon the catastrophe, since the councillor had kept all his ledgers and business papers of every description in the tower, and not a scrap of them was to be found.

But, although enormous sums had thus been destroyed, did not she, the Frau President, at present make her home upon an estate valued at many thousands? Were not the vaults of the plate-chamber beneath her feet? Were not the stables full of thorough-bred horses? And was not the collection of paintings of incalculable value? All this would more than suffice to ensure a luxurious existence to the old lady to the end of her days, if only she could prove that one drop of blood in her aristocratic veins came from the same source that had given life to the rope-maker's son.

And they spoke also of her who lay at present above-stairs, in Henriette's sitting-room, the castle miller's granddaughter; they knew that her entire fortune had been kept in the tower. Upon this theme the Frau President in her nervous agitation did not care to speculate; what was the old miller's hoarded wealth to her? Flora, on the contrary, maintaining an entire self-possession in spite of the horrors of the day, pondered long upon the possible consequences to her half-sister of the destruction of the safe in the tower.

There was an angry frown upon her brow as she came down from the third story about ten o'clock in the evening. She, the admired centre of a large and aristocratic circle, the beautiful woman whose intellectual force and ripe judgment had been the wonder of her acquaintances, had been obliged, to her intense disgust, to play the pitiable part of a supernumerary in the sick-room. In addition to Henriette, who had taken up her position on a couch and would not consent to leave the room, the dean's widow had made her appearance as Kitty's nurse. She had sought refuge in the villa, for the house by the river being the nearest to the tower had suffered much from the explosion; the chimneys had been thrown down, the southern wall was much damaged, the windows were shivered to pieces, and none of the doors would latch or bolt. The friend and companion had gone with the maid to Susy, at the mill, and the doctor had left two watchmen to guard the house during the night.

There had been no place for Flora at the wounded girl's bedside. At the head sat the dean's widow, her eyes red with weeping, and opposite her the doctor. "The old woman" had behaved as if the trifling injury that Kitty had sustained were the gravest consequence of the disaster, and the doctor had never stirred from his post, only relinquishing his clasp of Kitty's hand when the bandage upon her brow needed renewing. It required more patience and self-control than Flora had at command to look quietly on at such anxious care bestowed upon "a tall, robust girl, with nerves and muscles inherited from the former woodcutter's daughter."

Weary of the perpetual whispering, and perceiving that there was no sensible word to be extorted from all these frightened people, the beautiful woman had at last left the room alone and greatly irritated: the doctor had not even accompanied her to the door. Of course she did not go to bed; she took off her evening dress, and, putting on a white cashmere dressing-gown, reclined towards morning upon her crimson lounge.

The former study looked desolate and dreary enough. The black writing-table had been emptied of all its papers, and stood dusty in the recess by the window; most of the books had been taken from the shelves and were packed in boxes in the middle of the floor; the pedestals were overturned, while, over all, the hanging lamp but carelessly lighted by the servants threw a pale uncertain gleam, which, now that the morning air and dawning light came freshly in through the broken panes of glass, swung to and fro in its white globe like the last faint spark of fire from the ruins.

When the day had fairly broken, Flora sent up-stairs to request the doctor to come to her, and as his firm, military step was heard in the corridor she hastily arranged her curls beneath her lace morning cap, leaned back among the crimson cushions, and looked from under her half-closed eyelids towards the door by which he was to enter.

He came in. Never had she seen him thus, and involuntarily, mechanically, she arose as if to greet a stranger.

"I am not well, Leo," she said with hesitation, not turning her glance of surprise from his face, which although pale and weary was as if inspired by some light from within that had totally changed its character. "My head burns; fright and wet feet must have brought on an attack of fever." She added this uncertainly, whilst his eyes dwelt upon her with the cool searching gaze of the physician. The look irritated her.

"Have a care, Bruck!" she said, in a perfectly calm tone, but her breath came quick, and her finely pencilled eyebrows contracted so that two deep lines showed between them. "For months I have borne to see that your practice is your best beloved, to which I am subordinate." She shrugged her shoulders. "I can foresee that such must be my fate, and possess magnanimity enough to acquiesce in it, since such devotion to his profession will bring fame to the man whose name I shall bear." She turned her head as she spoke with a haughty air, as if looking through a world filled with his renown. "But I protest against being set aside when I have need of your medical skill," she continued. "We have all suffered from the terrible catastrophe. It was my task, and one of indescribable difficulty, to protect and soothe grandmamma, who was half insane with terror, and Henriette; and yet it has never occurred to you to ask, 'How have you borne all this?'"

"I have not asked because I know you pride yourself upon subordinating all emotion to the intellect, and because I can see at a glance how little your physical condition has been affected."

She listened amazed to his tone, which, with all its wonted calmness, trembled audibly as if in consequence of throbbing pulses.

"With regard to your second assertion you are wrong," she said, after a moment's silence. "My temples throb with nervous excitement. Your first may be correct; I do strive to compose myself in view of every event whatsoever, that I may bring my calm judgment to bear upon it. From your tone you would seem to disapprove of this method of mine, although just at present it certainly deserves your praise. I have never been induced to speculate with my paternal inheritance; I have never been tempted by fortunate chances; were it otherwise I should stand here this moment with empty hands, my dowry would have been dispersed upon the air like the papers that were destroyed yesterday. Yes, look dismayed if you will, Bruck,"—she lowered her voice,—"I am not deceived, and I choose to call things by their right names. Grandmamma is pacing her room and wringing her hands in fear lest the 'colossal fortune' should fall into stranger hands. Our precious guests spent half the night bewailing the fate of the wealthy man, fortune's darling, torn by cruel destiny so tragically from his earthly paradise. But I say, this theatric exit was tolerably well put upon the stage, nevertheless there is a rent in the curtain which lets in the light of reality upon the corpse. In a short time, perhaps in a day or two, the fact will be spread abroad that RÖmer was at first only a bold speculator, it may be, but in the end—a scoundrel."

There could not have been a more striking illustration of the wayward turns of fortune than was presented at this moment. There stood the beautiful woman in her white Iphigenia robes, the crimson carpet beneath her feet, the swinging lamp above her brow, upon the very spot where in the preceding December she had stigmatized as pretended her lover's medical skill, and had declared, "I cannot endure concealment of my opinion."

Flora was right; she certainly called things by their right names; she gave utterance to what the man standing before her could not in his inmost soul deny, and which since yesterday had caused him great pain; but to hear the naked fact thus boldly stated by those finely chiselled lips, in order that their owner might vaunt her keen insight, naturally offended deeply his sense of delicacy and refinement.

"Ah, I see I am so unfortunate to-day as to displease you," she began again, half sarcastically half poutingly, as she followed him to the window recess whither he had gone in evident irritation. "It may be that my speech was too downright; perhaps in view of many little kindnesses shown me now and again by RÖmer it would have been well to be less frank and true,"—she elevated her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders,—"but I am the sworn foe of all hypocrisy and have reason enough for indignation. My sister Henriette, with whose inheritance RÖmer has been speculating, will be a beggar; and Kitty?—rest assured that not a stiver of all her immense fortune is left."

"So much the better!" came as if only breathed from the lips that seemed at this moment to be curved beneath the thick moustache in a tender smile.

Faint as was the sound, Flora's ear caught it. "So much the better?" she asked, in surprise, half laughing as she clasped her hands. "Our youngest is certainly not much to my taste, but what crime has she committed, that her ill luck should so content you?"

He bit his lip, and, pressing his forehead against the window-frame, looked abroad into the garden, where the golden morning light was just touching the head of the marble nymph at the fountain.

"Of course Kitty will not be so badly off as Henriette; she will have the castle mill, and that is worth a good round sum," she added, after a pause. "She can live there when matters are arranged; and indeed I know of no better refuge for our poor invalid. The sisters are very fond of each other, and would like to be together. In fact, no other arrangement is possible, for grandmamma's limited income will make it impossible for her to take charge of Henriette, and of course I should not think of burdening you with my sick sister." She suddenly put her hand within his arm and looked up at him tenderly. "Ah, Leo, how thankful I shall be when we are seated together in the carriage to-morrow, leaving behind us all this disaster and misery!"

With a passionate gesture and a face in which shone an indignation she had never seen there before, he snatched his arm from her clasp. "Would you really forsake them all, leave them helpless and alone to meet the terrible shocks of the near future?" he cried, as if beside himself. "Go then whenever you choose,—I remain here!"

"Leo!" she almost screamed, and then stood for a moment speechless, overpowered by anger. She laid her clenched hand upon her heart, as if she had received a stab. "Surely you do not estimate the full meaning of your hasty words," she said, slowly and emphatically. "I will regard them only as they call for this reply from me. If we do not set out upon our tour to-morrow, before further revelations are made as to RÖmer's affairs,—and surely no one can take it amiss of us that we quietly carry out plans so long decided upon,—our union must be indefinitely postponed."

He made no reply, but stood motionless in his former position, looking from the window. His silence evidently irritated her further: passion gleamed in her large gray eyes.

"I said before that I am willing to yield the first place in your heart to your practice, to your devotion to your profession," she went on, with increasing emphasis, "but I will not yield one jot of my rights to other women,—remember that, Leo! I cannot see why I should be forced to struggle through the fearful crash that must come here, with grandmamma and my sisters, when I have the right to flee to the calm protection of the home you have promised me. Can I do anything to alter the state of affairs? Nothing whatever. Why, then, do you wish to consign me to needless suffering? Must I too be an object for universal compassion? I would sooner depart on the instant. I will not be pointed at and pitied."

She paced the room in agitation. "You have not the faintest excuse to make me for remaining here," she said, standing at a distance from him, frowning darkly, when she had waited in vain for a reply. "You cannot even plead the necessity here for your professional aid. You would have had to leave Henriette to her fate; and as for Kitty, you will not assert that the scratch on her forehead which you yourself declared to be trifling demands all your medical skill. To tell the truth, I could scarcely suppress a laugh last night at your aunt's conduct and your own. It is allowable for Henriette to shed childish tears over a few drops of blood,—she is weak and nervous,—but for you to behave as if our youngest, the robust child of a race of peasants, were framed of snow and air——" She paused at the menacing look that Leo turned upon her as he raised his finger, unable longer to control the expression of his indignation.

She laughed angrily. "Do you think I am afraid? I return menace for menace. Take care, the 'yes' has not yet been uttered before the altar; it still lies with me to give a turn to affairs that you would hardly like. I repeat that your whole conduct yesterday with regard to Kitty was distasteful to me. Am I not to sneer at your treating her like a princess——"

"No, not like a princess,—like the best beloved of my heart, like my first and only love," he interrupted her, in a deep, melodious voice.

She started as if the earth had suddenly yawned at her feet; involuntarily she raised her arms towards heaven, and then she approached him.

He extended his hands as if to ward off her touch, and stood erect and decided. "Yes, I confess to you what I have hitherto struggled fiercely to lock within my own breast, from a shame that was the result of a perverted idea of right and wrong. I do it without a word of excuse or self-justification——" His voice sank. "I have been faithless to you from the moment of my first meeting with Kitty."

Flora slowly dropped her arms. Plain and distinct as the words were, they were the most incredible she had ever heard. Pshaw! why had she betrayed such foolish terror? It was true that the petted Flora Mangold had ensnared many a man's heart to reject it pitilessly in wanton love of power: not a season had passed without bringing her such triumphs; but that a man should prove faithless to her—ridiculous! The idea was too absurd; no one in the capital would credit it, herself least of all. It was far easier to believe that Doctor Bruck had at length summoned courage to attempt to revenge himself. She had pushed her fiery trial to extremes; in her justifiable irritation she had threatened to withhold her "yes" on the very altar-steps, and his long-suffering was exhausted; he was trying to punish her by arousing her jealousy. Her boundless vanity and frivolity postponed for a few minutes the bitterest experience of her life.

She curled her lip ironically and folded her arms. "Ah, at first sight, then!" she said. "Was that outside in the corridor, where she made her appearance like a genuine child of the people, the dust of travel on her boots and the poetic kerchief bundle in her hand?"

It was plain that her trifling irritated the man almost to madness. At this terrible moment, when his "first and only love" had asserted itself after suffering and struggles unspeakable, he was laughingly taken to task like a school-boy. He controlled himself, however. This question must be decided now; to see that it was decided with dignity was his task.

"I had then been Kitty's guide and companion from the mill, where I first saw her," he replied, with tolerable composure.

A dark blush of surprise crimsoned Flora's cheek. Her eyes sparkled: she bit her lip. "Ah! this is the first I have heard of that. She too,—the hypocrite of the 'pure' heart had her reasons for suppressing all mention of this interesting meeting." She laughed a short, hard laugh. "And what more, Bruck?" she demanded, her arms still folded, one foot advanced upon the carpet.

"If you persist in this tone, no explanation is possible for me except in writing." And he indignantly attempted to pass her.

She stepped before him. "Good heavens! how tragically you take it! I am only doing my best to play my part in your little farce. What! you would strive with me in a warfare of the pen? Dear Leo, believe me, you would come off the loser there, in spite of the telling medical brochures you have given to the world."

The arrogant smile that accompanied her words faded upon her lips in the presence of the stern cold glance that met her own. Gradually the suspicion dawned within her that he was indeed in earnest, bitter earnest; not as to his pretended affection for Kitty,—that passed all belief,—but as to his resolution, in spite of his passionate love for herself, to break with his capricious betrothed at the last moment rather than submit to a life-long "fiery trial." She regretted the words she had spoken, but arrogance and vanity retained their mastery of her.

"Then go!" she said, stepping aside. "I will not bear such looks as the one you have just given me. Go! I will not stir a finger to keep you." She burst into a scornful laugh. "Oh, rare masculine nature, so vaunted and so sung! There was a time when I begged almost upon my knees for my freedom; the chains were only the more closely riveted upon me. Look then, and learn from me what in such moments is the sole and only stay even for a 'vain, weak, feminine nature:' pride——"

"It was pride that then made me inexorable,—invincible pride, although a very different quality from the mixture of anger and defiance which you designate as such," he interrupted her. "I confess I was wrong,—very wrong. I will trouble you, as I have said, with no self-justification that might seem to throw blame upon others however remotely. The motive for my conduct then sprang from a fancied need to assert my own force, my masculine will, which as I thought should rise superior to all vagaries of feeling. I would not give you back your troth because I had been accustomed to regard my own when once plighted as pledged for all eternity. From that point of view our betrothal was as indissoluble as a Catholic marriage. I do not deny that the relics of my student days had weight with me in a false conception of honour. I spoke of one spring of action to you on that evening, and I refer to it again. I did not choose to join the throng of those who had been bound to your chariot-wheels only to be publicly rejected. I repeat that this was a boyish, unformed view to take, since in such cases it is not the man's honour, but the woman's, that is compromised."

She turned from him and drummed angrily with her fingers upon the table. "I never concealed from you the fact that I had been wooed repeatedly before our betrothal," she said, with proud indifference.

"You never did, nor did any of my acquaintances," he interposed. "But you must not forget that you were the lofty ideal of my boyhood. At the university, in my last campaign, I was spurred on by the thought that the proud heart so often wooed had never inclined to any, that it would bless him who should win it——" He broke off; he would not refer to the coquetry she had displayed; he scorned to bring the slightest recrimination to his aid.

"And do you assert that I ever loved a single one of this throng of inevitable adorers?" she asked, indignantly.

"Loved? No, Flora, not one; not even myself," he exclaimed, carried away for the moment. "You loved only the incomparable beauty, the elegant carriage, the vaunted wit, the future fame, of the petted Flora Mangold."

"Aha! I have looked in vain for loving flattery from your lips. Even in the first days of our betrothal you had no caressing words for me, and now in your anger you paint a picture of me with which I may well be content."

He blushed like a girl. It was long since he had kissed that beautiful mouth, and yet that he had ever done so now seemed to him an offence against that other, whose purity made her the first and only true embodiment of his ideal woman. Involuntarily he withdrew his glance from the eyes that gazed at him with laughter in their depths.

Ah, she had done well to remind him of those happy first days,—the game was her own. "Did you really come to me, Leo, only to find fault and quarrel with me?" she asked, approaching him again and hastily laying her hand on his arm.

"You forget that you sent for me, Flora," he replied, gravely. "I should not have come of my own accord. I have two patients above-stairs; Henriette's condition became critical towards morning. If you had not expressly desired my presence I should not have left her, nor should I, at this miserable and unhappy time, have brought affairs to the crisis you have just provoked."

"Crisis? Because in a fit of childish vexation I told you to go! How can you take girlish pique in such bitter earnest?" What words from one who usually repudiated all maidenly emotion as unworthy her masculine intellect! This slippery eel-like nature was hard to grapple with.

The doctor looked dismayed. Her capricious words had caused him merely to describe a circle; he was no farther with her than he had been at the beginning of the interview. "There I do not blame you," he answered, with a passionate impatience that would not be suppressed. "I allowed myself to confess to you——"

"Ah, yes, you told me of your masculine will, which must rise superior to all vagaries of feeling. Has it played you false at last?"

"No, not played me false, but submitted to better and purer convictions. Flora, I told you awhile ago that my refusal to dissolve the engagement between us was the result of a false principle. I had long known that in your heart there was not a trace of true self-sacrificing love for me; and I too had entirely outlived my feeling for you, which had never been a warm genuine emotion of the heart, but merely enthusiastic admiration. We had both been mistaken. True, I suffered severely in the thought of the loveless future that awaited me,—me to whom nature had given a heart craving affection; but I resigned myself to it, and you had less difficulty in reconciling yourself to your pretended rival, my profession, because our estrangement required of you no real sacrifice."

She was silent, and her eyes sought the ground; she could not look into the grave intense face of the speaker and contradict the truth he uttered.

"And I clung to keeping my troth to the letter, all the more that my spirit was faithless to you——"

"Ah!—indeed?"

"Yes, Flora, I have struggled with my inclination as with a deadly foe." He sighed heavily. "From the first moment I have dealt cruelly with myself, and with the girl who inspired me with this invincible passion. I would not permit the slightest, the most innocent approach upon her part. I would not even endure in my room the flowers she had held in her hand and thoughtlessly forgotten. She liked to be in my house. I forbade her coming as if she had desired to fire my roof. I was coldly uncivil to her even while I looked into her face that was heaven to me——"

"Ah, yes, one can well conceive it. Divine to the eye of a physician,—round and healthy, pure white and red painted in strong colours by Nature herself." With these words the breathless listening figure awoke to life. "And you dare to tell me this? What! this naÏve, innocent creature throws flowers into the rooms of the men whom she would ensnare——"

"Hush!" He raised his hand with an air of such command as silenced even those wayward lips. "Overwhelm me with reproaches, I shall not justify myself; but in defence of Kitty I am armed to the teeth. She never wittingly attracted me; she returned to Dresden with no knowledge of my heart or—of her own. Why she went you well know. Whilst from one quarter she was met by persuasions to contract a loveless marriage, from another she was informed that the rooms which she occupied were needed for the comfort of a high-born guest. I was witness to this uncivil treatment, and almost forgot myself so far as to remonstrate indignantly with the Frau President; yet when an indirect request was made to me to receive the unwelcome inmate in my house I had no room there for her; nay, more, an hour afterwards she was an involuntary auditor of my request to my aunt to break off all intercourse with her until I should have removed to L——. And she went, wounded to the core of her proud firm and yet gentle nature, and I was brutal nay wicked enough, for the sake of a false principle, for the sake of the idol of clay which represents certain ideas of honour, to persist in the monstrous lie which I tried to make credible to her, to myself, and to the world about me."

As if overpowered by his own description, he paused for some seconds. Flora threw herself upon the couch and clasped her head between her hands, as if she chose to hear no more; but he continued: "I pitilessly allowed her to go, and breathed again; now I should be better of this mental torture. Folly, folly! I did not see that at the moment she vanished from my sight a demon glided to my side and clutched my very heart-strings. It was not the cares of my profession that hollowed my cheeks and made me gloomy and taciturn in society,—incessant labor is my delight and steels my nerves and muscles,—it was longing, a longing that increased as the days went by."

He had left the window, and was pacing the room in evident agitation of mind, while Flora sat upright and tossed back the curls from her forehead.

"Upon Kitty's account?" she cried, with a bitter laugh. "Oh, if papa could only see now how just was the instinct that guided his first-born when she refused to call the miller's daughter mamma, and when she turned away in anger from his youngest born because she already had two real sisters and did not want a half-sister! And it is no false principle which you have hitherto adopted as your spring of action,—no! How many thousand 'monstrous lies' are maintained and rule men's actions for the sake of this principle!—and those who maintain them victoriously will be respected as honourable men forever——"

"I vowed to myself that during this decisive interview I would not allude to the past," he interrupted her, standing still, his voice trembling, but evidently determined to make an end of the matter, "yet you force me to refer to the scene between us which took place after the attack upon you in the forest. I then allowed my betrothed to tell me to my face that she hated me, or rather despised me, because untoward chance seemed to prevent my proving to be the celebrity to whom she had first plighted her troth. The following day I endured the unexampled transformation of this hatred into fond affection, in consequence of my title of Hofrath conferred upon me by the prince, and I silently suppressed my contempt and dragged on my chain, because I wished to be 'respected as an honourable man.' And I should have carried out the detestable falsehood if we two had been the only ones concerned in the matter, if the burden of a ruined existence had been mine alone to bear. I should like to summon these three human hearts for judgment before the bar of true morality; one pronounces the solemn 'yes' before the altar because she thereby ensures to herself a desirable worldly position, and the two others who have suddenly become conscious of the true sacred love that unites them,—who belong to each other although they may be as far asunder as the poles——"

A half-stifled cry interrupted him. "Did she really dare then, hypocrite that she is, to raise her eyes to her sister's betrothed? Has she avowed her sinful love to you?"

He looked at her for an instant with speechless indignation. "However base the accusations you may utter, you cannot sully the stainless purity of that character," he said, firmly. "Since that departure I have never heard one word from her lips, not even during the past night when with returning consciousness she opened her eyes. She returned yesterday, but I did not know of it. I had retired to my garden to avoid the noise and bustle of the evening's entertainment, reports of which had pursued me from patient to patient during the day, when I suddenly saw her upon the bridge, an exile who dared not cross it, banished thence by my cruel words." He paused, and his face flushed; never could he confide to these ears how then and there the entrancing conviction had possessed his soul that the girl weeping by the poplars loved him.

"After the fearful catastrophe I sought her in the park," he continued, forcing himself to proceed calmly, "and as I raised her from the ground I told myself that death had passed her by that I might yet be happy. I tore myself loose from the fetters of conventionality and a false sense of honour, I rose superior to the malice of a calumniating world, and resigned all claim to the title of a 'respected' hypocrite."

During his last words Flora's air and manner underwent a transformation; she had lost her game, all was at an end, and the cold designing woman used her quick wit to become mistress of this situation also. All that was defiant in her bearing vanished, and was replaced by a soft cat-like suppleness. She hurriedly drew her morning cap over her curls, and looking up from beneath them with a Satanic smile that showed her sharp white teeth, she said, as if in reply to his last declaration, "What! without asking me, Herr Doctor? Well, let it go! In view of all these naÏve confessions, I cannot but ask, with a sigh of relief, 'What would have become of me at the side of such a sentimental enthusiast?' And therefore it happens well, well for each of us. I give you back your troth, but only as one might let loose a bird tied fast by a string that has one end wound around one's finger." She smiled again, and touched the betrothal-ring upon her hand with her delicate finger-tip. "Woo the most charming girl in the capital, one who hates and envies me,—and there are enough who do so,—and I will resign the ring to her, but never to Kitty, never! Do you hear? Although you should flee across the ocean together, or stand before the altar in the most obscure village church, I shall be there at the right moment and forbid the union."

"Thank God you have no power to do so!" he said, drawing a deep breath, and very pale.

"Do you think so? Trust me to bar the fulfilment of your hopes in the future, pitiable traitor that you are, who could trample down a superb flower-bed to pluck a daisy! You shall hear from me again!"

With a low, sneering laugh, she hastily retired to the next room, locking the door behind her, and almost at the same moment a footman knocked, to request the doctor to come instantly to FrÄulein Henriette, who had suddenly become much worse.