The next morning on awaking Lilly began to worry anew.

Nobody was so blind as not to detect, on coming closer how worm-eaten was her existence. Least of all he whose fine feelings vibrated under each spiritual touch and awoke an anxious echo in her soul.

Even if it were possible for her to create a sort of island on which she might prevent him from coming into contact with her world, wasn't her very appearance a traitor? All those mad nights could not have passed over her without leaving traces. Two years before Dr. Salmoni had already remarked a change in her appearance. "A cold, disdainful look," he had said.

She jumped from bed, and ran to the mirror to subject every feature to suspicious scrutiny.

Her eyes had grown tired. There was no disputing that. But they did not look disdainful. "Virgin Mary eyes," Dr. Rennschmidt had said, not "Madonna eyes." Was there a difference? On her brow were faint cobwebby lines; but she could well-nigh rub them away with her finger. "They will disappear with a little massaging," she said to herself. But the deep grooves on either side of her mouth were bad. They gave her face a haughty, satiated expression. "The paths that consuming passion long has trod," she quoted from "TannhÄuser in Rom," which she knew almost by heart.

And yet—had she not preserved her noblest, her profoundest feelings? As if to save them up for this One, and now that the One had come, it was too late perhaps.

She spent the day in misery, and when Richard came for his tea, he found red eyes.

That afternoon proved to her clearly what she possessed in Richard. He asked so few questions, and was so sympathetic and full of solicitude, that for a moment or two she felt comforted and secure. She almost succumbed to the temptation to tell him a little about her new acquaintance, as was right between two such good friends. Fortunately she resisted the impulse. Rather let Adele into the secret, who had several times observed encouragingly:

"You may trust me fully. I know life far too well not to take the lady's side."

Wishing to avoid "the whole crew," as she dubbed the circle of her friends, Lilly pled sickness, and Richard rested satisfied. In the evening it occurred to her she had told Dr. Rennschmidt she was going out. She hastily put out the light, and sat brooding in the dark until bedtime.

The next morning the mail brought her a letter addressed in an unknown hand.

She tore the envelope open and read:

Good Heavens! Did this refer to her, to Lilly Czepanek, who ate her heart out in dull self-depreciation?

If any human being in the world could think of her so, above all he, the most glorious—she knew the poem, though unsigned, came from him—then after all she was not in such a bad way; then perhaps her life had not taken a permanent hold upon her; probably her innermost being had remained intact, and values lay strewn in her soul which needed only to be used in order to sanctify and bless herself and others.

Long after she knew the verses by heart she read them again and again. She could not tear her eyes from the beloved writing.

Then she tried to set the words to music. She opened the piano, and fantasied. Her playing came back to her as on the other night; everything she had known as a girl and had thought long forgotten came back. She needed merely to drop her fingers on the keys, and there it was—or nearly so.

But her finger joints were stiff, and the muscles of her lower arm soon wearied. She would have to practise and limber them.

"When he visits me, I can even play a classic for him," she thought. Buoyed by the new hope she floated further along on the current of her newly won self-esteem.

At the same time she kept careful count of each minute that separated her from the evening.

Richard found her practicing assiduously.

"What's gotten into you to-day?" he asked. "I hadn't the slightest idea you could play so well."

"Neither had I," laughed Lilly.

"You must play for the others this very evening."

"This evening?" Lilly asked, alarmed. "I thought I had this evening free."

"Free! What do you mean by free?" he rejoined, evidently annoyed. "You act just as if our going out in company were heaven knows what a sacrifice. You keep to yourself whenever you can possibly get a chance. Yesterday, in fact, Karla said nobody really knows what sort of life you lead."

"I think that applies much better to Karla than to me. Nobody really knows her name."

"It doesn't matter. Others have criticised your reserved ways, too. One man even hinted I'd better keep my eye on you more than I do, and not let you go your own way so much. So to hush them up I promised I'd bring you this evening instead of yesterday. There's no getting out of it."

Lilly instantly reflected that a refusal, far from helping, would merely arouse his dormant suspicions. So she bravely choked down fright and tears. But when he left the anguish of disappointment was all the keener.

What would Dr. Rennschmidt think if he came at the appointed time and found her out? Since he had not mentioned his address, she could not write to him, and he would have a full day in which to nurse evil suspicions.

In an agony of apprehension she sought comfort with Adele, whose dry, peevish face perceptibly brightened. She seemed to be in her element when it came to deceiving a person, or, better still, two persons.

"The best thing," she said, "would be for you to say a sick friend had asked you to come. Something sad like that takes them all in." She knew it from experience, she assured Lilly.

That evening her friends did not get much entertainment out of Lilly. She disregarded the gentlemen, and gave the ladies rude answers. Mrs. Jula, the only one whose presence would have pleased her, was absent, as had become usual of late. They finally left her to herself and Richard, the dear fellow, who had hoped to parade his possession, helplessly gnawed the ends of his moustache.

The next morning Lilly again suffered the torments of dread.

When she had come home the night before, despite the late hour, she had awakened Adele, who said he had come and had looked dreadfully upset. He had gone away without saying anything.

Another day spent in nervously counting the minutes. She stood in front of the mirror, utterly despondent, and dressed herself for him. She would have liked to sink at his feet when he entered. Nevertheless she determined to maintain in words and gesture, then and in the future, a certain gentle, melancholy grandeur of manner which would nip suspicion in the bud, and would correspond with the picture of her he had drawn in his verses. When she thought that that stupid, much-kissed head of hers should from now on be a "head divine," she grew thoroughly ill at ease from sheer sanctity.

At half past seven the bell rang.

She received him with a conventional smile, and the gentle, melancholy grandeur, which she succeeded in adopting perfectly, concealed her harassed spirits.

His manner, she saw at the first glance, was also constrained. His eyes glided past her with a singularly empty expression.

"He has divined everything," her soul cried.

But she bore up nobly.

"I must beg your pardon," she said, "for not having kept our appointment."

"I hope your friend is feeling better," he said, while a disdainful smile of doubt played about his lips.

She made all kinds of explanations, said whatever came into her head; and without looking at him, she knew he believed not a syllable.

"I must beg your pardon," he rejoined after she had finished, with the same lurking disdain in his voice and smile.

"Why?"

"I sent you some verses which I hope you will consider nothing more than what they really are, a mere harmless stylistic effort without sense or significance."

"He's already withdrawing," her guilty conscience cried; and all the colder and worldlier was her reply.

"I admit your pretty verses did astonish me at first. I couldn't conceive that I was a fitting subject to inspire them. But then I thought you probably meant nothing more than what you just now said, and I did not feel offended. If you wish we won't say more about it."

He looked at her with great questioning eyes, and she rejoiced at having requited him so bitterly.

Wishing to observe the rules of decorum she invited him to stay for supper, though absolutely nothing had been prepared for a guest.

"I thought I was to be permitted to take you out," he replied in a hard, disillusioned tone.

She smiled politely.

"Just as you wish."

They descended the stairs in silence, and in silence paced along the canal, the same way they had walked three evenings before, pressed close against each other in drunken bliss. Then, too, they had not spoken; but, oh, how different had their silence been!

"What have you done the last few days?" Lilly finally asked, to make conversation.

"Nothing special. I tried to write an article for the MÜnchener Kunstzeitschrift, on which I'm a collaborator. My subject was the Sienna School outside of Sienna. But it didn't turn out very well. The editor won't be satisfied."

Lilly read reproach of herself in his words. Evidently he wanted to indicate that her entrance into his life was to blame.

And when he asked to what restaurant she would like to go, she said, her wounded heart quivering:

"I'm neither hungry nor thirsty, and people and light would hurt me."

She wanted to add something about "not wishing to be a burden" and similar things, but swallowed the words before they were spoken.

"If you wish to avoid people, we might go to the Tiergarten."

Lilly agreed. Had he said, "Come down into the water of the canal with me," she would have assented even more willingly.

The hard park roads stretched before them in the light of the electric lamps like long galleries with garish walls between which one was forced to run the gauntlet. The pedestrians coming toward Lilly and Dr. Rennschmidt measured the tall couple with cold, intrusive curiosity.

"It's worse here than in the crowded streets," said Lilly.

Her aching, despondent heart fluttered with excitement

He pointed to a side path leading into darkness; and without speaking they dipped into solitude.

Above the towering masses of branches the cloudy sky, looking like a metal whose brilliance has worn off, reflected the invisible sea of city lights. Through the lattice work of the leafless bushes gleamed the lamps lining the more public ways; and on all sides the gongs of the electric trams, shooting hither and thither, sounded like fire alarums.

But there in the interior of the park, quiet and darkness prevailed. Lilly felt she had sunk into a black sea of mournfulness.

The silence between them became intolerable.

Suddenly Dr. Rennschmidt stepped in front of Lilly and blocked the way.

"What's the matter?" she asked, startled.

"Mrs. Czepanek—Mrs. Czepanek—what I am going to say—what I am going to say"—his raised hands jerked back and forth before her face—"will either bring us together again—or—send us apart forever. I was cowardly before. I thought I could evade the truth. When I said I didn't mean what I wrote in my poem, I was lying. I felt exactly what I wrote. And a thousand times more strongly. But I oughtn't to have spoken. I know I frightened you. You were bewildered. You didn't know how to take me. You probably think me some enamoured adventurer who wants to exploit the trust you show. Dear, dear Mrs. Czepanek, I promise you I will never again annoy you with a display of my feelings. But don't withdraw your friendship from me. Please don't. Just imagine what would become of me if I were to lose you!"

So that's what it was!

Oh, God! If nothing else stood between them.

She could not help herself—she had to lean against a tree and cry. Her tears soon soaked her veil, and she raised it and pressed her finger tips to her eyes.

"What's the matter?" she heard his voice, hoarse with anxiety. "Did I wound you so deeply? Was what I said so very bad? I will atone for it. Just pardon me. You must pardon me."

When she heard him beg her pardon so humbly for the immeasurable happiness he had bestowed upon her, she was seized with a frenzy, and throwing her grand manner to the winds and her shame, to boot, she flung her arms about his neck with a groan of abandon, pressed her body against his, and kissed his lips, and sucked and bit them.

Under the impetus of this wild, unchaste kiss, he staggered and held himself erect on her, digging his fingers into the flesh of her upper arm.

How good it felt, because it hurt so!

"At last, at last!" her heart cried.

Now he knew who she was and what she had to give him.

When she pulled herself together, she saw he had sunk back with his head leaning against the same tree that had supported her. His hat had fallen to the ground. His eyes were closed. His face had the ashen hue of death.

For a few moments all was still. The only sound was the clanging of the tram bells.

"My love, my love!" she whispered, stooping and then drawing herself upward on him. "Wake up, my love! wake up, and come!"

He opened his eyes and stared at her with the look of a foolish slave.

"Come, come," she exulted. "Come back, come home. I don't want to roam about any more—in the woods or restaurants. Come home! Come to me!"

He did not respond. He seemed to have lost his mind completely.

A dull sense of guilt awoke in her, but was instantly stifled by joy.

"Come, come!"

With both hands she drew him away from the spot that had become the cradle of her bliss—and his, too. Was it remarkable that happiness should benumb him and rob him of his senses? He upon whom Lilly Czepanek bestowed herself, Lilly Czepanek for whose favour hundreds had begged in vain, might well lose his senses. It by no means derogated from his dignity.

While she drew him along the roads and streets, she let loose upon him her soul's tempest in a delirium of happy prattle.

Hadn't he an inkling of what he was that he should have harboured such doubts? She had belonged to him from the very first instant. A miracle had taken place in her as well as in him. Never had she known what love was until the day when the squirrels chipped over their heads. The rest of her life no longer existed for her. He alone was there. He and his eyes. He and his mouth. He and his will. He and the great, glorious work which she would toil for like a slave; which she would enrich with her love, because from old pictures and poems he would gather nothing but the grey ashes of love. Genuine, young blissful love, she would teach him, she, Lilly Czepanek, who had waited for him ever since she could remember, who belonged to him from the beginning, from the beginning of time, you might say. He could see God had destined them for each other, because they both thought they had met before, whereas they had never met in life. At most in dreams. She had seen him in her dreams always, always. Exactly as in fairy tales.

"Perhaps it is a fairy tale. Tell me, tell me, you whose first name I do not even know. But no matter. Tell me, it's not a mere fairy tale."

But he said nothing. He walked along like a somnambulist. He followed her up the steps mechanically, and remained standing stiffly in the centre of the drawing-room, into which she had led him. When the lights were turned on, he looked about with a shy, searching glance, as if he had never seen the room, and could not recollect how he had come there.

She clung to him, and said he should sit quite still and rest, and close those eyes of his. Then she helped him remove his overcoat, and pressed him into a seat and kissed him on both "those eyes" until his lids closed and he reclined there as if actually asleep.

"Now wait, beloved, until I come back."

She ran joyously into the kitchen to order Adele to prepare supper hastily. Then she hurried into the bedroom, where she changed her rustling silk dress for a light blue tea-gown, turquoise-studded, in which, as Richard was wont to say gallantly, she was Venus herself. She arranged her hair more loosely and discarded her rings The only jewel she left was a gold bracelet.

Adele, the sulky, had transformed the table as if by magic into a bower of flowers, and her face was wreathed in smiles; for at last there were human goings-on in this respectably indecent house. The plated silverware gleamed on the fresh damask, and the aroma of golden bananas came from the fruit basket.

He might be content. Lilly was. Her dread had disappeared. She felt well-nigh victorious. But her happiness was too humble to be totally unqualified.

Her one pride, greedy for recognition, was that she had so much, so much to give him.

When she entered the drawing-room, she no longer found him reclining on the arm-chair. To her terror she saw he was standing in front of the secrÉtaire—absorbed in contemplation of Richard's picture.

"Oh, if only I had taken it away before!" she thought Now it was too late.

He let a confused, astonished look glide over the Venus robe, and fetching a deep breath, grasped both her hands.

"Why did you make yourself so beautiful for me?"

"Just to give you a little feeling of being at home here," she said, dropping her eyes. "Nothing more. But come. Let's go to supper. We haven't had anything to eat all evening."

"Eat and drink now? Oh, very well—I'll just sit at table, if you want."

"Then I don't care for anything either," she cried, clinging to him, and drawing her arm so tight about his neck that the pressure of his body fairly robbed her of her breath.

Peter, the little ape, who had slept in his corner the whole time, awoke and whimpered jealously, and stretched his grey arms yearningly between the bars of his cage, as if wishing to be the third party in the alliance.

Dr. Rennschmidt heard the strange sound and started.

Lilly smiled and calmed him.

"Later I'll introduce you to all my little ones. My friends must be yours, too."

He drew himself up to his full height.

"How is that possible? As what would you introduce me?"

Lilly hastily parried.

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way. I merely meant—" She was at a loss what explanation to offer. Then she felt his trembling fingers clutch her upper arm. His eyes burned their way into hers.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Her brain reeled.

"Who am I? I am a woman—who loves you—who has never loved anyone before."

He gratefully caressed her shoulders.

"Understand me," he said. "I am not trying to force myself into your confidence. But if the relation between two human beings is what ours has been for the past hour, they want to mean everything in the world to each other. I have never met a woman like you. I am utterly helpless. The few little experiences I have had don't count. In Rome a baker's daughter loved me. She ran away with a marquis. When I was a student I went through a few similar episodes. I never mingled much in society. And now all of a sudden I have you in my arms—the noblest, the most glorious thing I've ever beheld. A creature not of this world. I keep looking at you as you stand there in your blue peplum—why, it's as if an old marble statue by Lysippus or Praxiteles had come to life. And that is to be mine? The mere desiring of it is naked tragedy. We are both making straight for a precipice, and we don't even resist."

"Why resist?" she cried, in bliss, throwing her head back, as if to toss from her brow streaming bacchantic locks. "We love each other. Nothing else concerns us."

He sank into the chair next to her, and pressed his face into both hands, his body heaving as with sobs.

She kneeled before him, and bent her head, and planted little kisses on his clenched hands.

"No," he cried, jumping up. "I will not permit myself simply to drift. If you think as you do, you who are willing to sacrifice everything—very well! But I, who am the recipient, I must make everything clear to you, so that you know for whom you are making the sacrifice. I mustn't leave any possibilities open to mislead you. I'm nothing but a poor young fellow who lives by his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects. I can't build on my work. And the few articles I write don't count. I must first toil for my little place in the world. It may be ten years before I secure it. And I can't let you support me. Think what you will of me, but I must tell you: we cannot become husband and wife."

At first she scarcely comprehended. It was impossible for her to realise that a man could be so naÏve, so unworldly as to speak of marriage in Lilly Czepanek's drawing-room.

She burst into a strident laugh, the overflow of her scorn of her own worthless life.

"Do you think," she cried, jumping to her feet, "that I'm nothing but an adventuress who tries to rope men into marriage, one of those harpies"—Mrs. Jula's word occurred to her—"who pounce upon every passerby? For what sort of a sorry wretch do you take me?"

He looked into her face with astonished, uncomprehending eyes.

"A woman who loves a man and wants to be the joy of his life is not a sorry wretch."

Oh, if that was what he meant!

The time when in all innocence she had wanted to be Richard's wife recurred to her. How long ago was it? How low she must have sunk if this most natural conception of the relation between man and woman should have become strange to her!

She shuddered, and was aware of having turned pale.

If only he had noticed nothing amiss. She could stand much, but not that.

Humbly, in dread of his searching eyes, she replied:

"I merely wanted to let you know that you are free and will remain free from first to last. You can leave whenever you want to, and nothing will have been."

"And you?" he asked.

"What do you mean—I?"

"As what will you remain behind if I go?"

"I'll take care of that," she laughed.

The contingency was very, very remote. Why split her head over it now?

But he was not yet satisfied.

"There's something peculiar about you. A whiff of mystery. A—a—how shall I say? The shadow of a wrong done you. You mingle much in society, you say. Yet I have the feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. Whenever I try to look into you, I feel as if rude hands had been laid on you. From now on I will stand by to protect and advise you. But I'm so inexperienced in worldly matters. It can easily come about that without divining it I may merely add to the mischief in your life. And I would not for the world—you are holy to me. So you must tell me now, to-night, whatever you may of what you have gone through and suffered. Will you?"

Lilly felt evasion was no longer possible. The hour had struck of which she had lived in dread ever since she had met Dr. Rennschmidt, though it had seemed indefinitely remote.

One of Mrs. Jula's sayings again flashed through her mind:

"The road back into the community of virtue leads through lies."

It had begun with lies; with lies it would go on.

For an instant the wish shot up within her to tell him the full truth. But that was madness, suicide. In fact, she need not lie. She need merely put a different face upon matters, the face they wore when hope still shone upon her life and she actually was what she now endeavoured to appear to be.

"It must be darker," she said, extinguishing the chandelier's piercing white glare. The only light now came from the red-shaded standing lamp, which cast a flowery shimmer upon them.

Her hands in his, her head leaning against his shoulder, she began her whispered, faltered confession.

She told of her sheltered, care-free childhood, in which music held sway, a benevolent spirit and a demon in one; of her father's flight and the poverty in which she and her mother were left.

So far nothing to conceal or alter. The colonel also remained as he had been, except that she occasionally promoted him to the rank of general. It was not until Walter von Prell stepped on the stage the second time that it became necessary to mix in fresh colours. The mere acknowledgment that she had frivolously abandoned body and soul to a tattered and torn jovial ne'er-do-well would deprive her forever of her friend's esteem. So the sorry little good-for-nothing was quite naturally converted into a happy, yet ill-fated laughing hero who had been vanquished merely because all the dark powers combined against him.

Once launched, she sailed serenely on. She represented the parting as having taken place amid a thousand vows and tears and bridal expectations. As for the duel, of which she had never learned the particulars, she exaggerated its horrors vastly, her lover emerging a total cripple, who left for America resolved not to enter her life again until he should be in a position to atone for his misdeed by marrying her. So for the meantime he placed her in the care of a simple, good young man, who was all nobility and self-sacrifice. For love of the vanished friend, this young man had taken Lilly's fate into his keeping four years before, and watched over her and led her into society. With rare disinterestedness he managed the little capital remaining from her married days, and always advised her in practical matters. He came every afternoon for a social cup of tea, and sometimes he escorted her when she went out in the evening. His circle had become hers, and everybody they knew honoured and respected the fine relationship existing between them, the basis of which was his noble loyalty to his friend.

So Lilly Czepanek, with the force of conviction, recounted her life history. She almost believed in her own words. As a matter of fact, it was a fair picture of her life, such as Richard had once portrayed it, before she had begun to slip into the abyss the night of the carnival.

Of Kellermann and Dr. Salmoni and the whole "crew," of course, she said nothing. But she alluded to her unfortunate art with tears—for the last time, she said—then it should never be mentioned again.

She concluded. When, with a hesitating feeling of security, she looked up to him expecting to receive his absolution, she started at the change in his appearance. His face was livid, his eyes, fastened on the ceiling, glowed unnaturally, deep furrows of anguish had cut themselves into his cheeks.

"Doesn't he believe me?" flashed through her head.

He jumped up, and snatched Richard's picture from the secrÉtaire, and carried it to the light of the standing lamp.

Lilly knew he was thinking of Walter, and timidly interjected:

"That isn't he."

"Then who is it?"

"His friend—the manufacturer."

He cast the picture aside.

"Haven't you a picture of his?"

Yes—but where was it? The large pastel was in the lumber room. The small one very likely was stowed away in some drawer.

"I packed it away," she excused herself, "because I couldn't bear to have it in my sight all the time."

She did not tell him why the sight of it annoyed her. She preferred him to assume the cause was her newly awakened love.

How ridiculous, how pitiful it all was!

She longed to sink at his feet and cry to him:

"Forgive me, forgive me—take me as I am, do not spurn me."

Instead, she lied on, shamelessly, desperately, like an ordinary adventuress on the verge of discovery.

"Will you do me the favour to hunt for the picture?"

"Why do you want to torture yourself?"

"Please, I beg of you."

Further resistance was out of the question. She fetched the key of the secretary from a basket, opened the drawers at random, rummaged among the papers without half looking, and actually found it. There it was. She had not seen it for years.

The white-lashed eyes looked haughty and cunning.

"Lie and deceive, lie and deceive," they seemed to say. "That's just what I used to do."

"Here it is."

He stepped to the lamp, and stared at the picture long. His lips twitched from time to time, the picture quivered jerkily in his hands.

"Exactly the way I stood in front of the rich orphan's photograph," thought Lilly. But that was long ago.

Then she heard him speak. His voice was hoarse.

"Will you answer a question upon which much depends?"

"Ask it, my love."

"Do you still count upon—upon this young man's return?"

Whither did the question lead? Lilly felt she need merely say "no," and every obstacle was removed. But if she said no, all her falsehoods about Walter and his friend would have had no significance.

So she had to choose a middle course.

"Sometimes I have my doubts," she managed to say, lingering over the words. "I am waiting for two now. My father seems to be gone—gone for good. And I don't hear from him either."

"Do you consider yourself bound, just as you did then?"

She felt the halter tightening about her neck.

"Tell me."

Something in his tone seemed to bar escape. It left no nook to hide in. Her answer meant life or death.

She held up her arms as if swearing an oath.

"Since I know you I don't care one way or the other. If you want me to be true to him, I'll wait for him—till Judgment Day. If you want me to throw him overboard, I'll throw him overboard."

He threw his head back and closed his eyes, and stood there as he had in the park. She became alarmed again for his sake.

"Why does he torture himself so?" she thought. Then it occurred to her for the first time that he took her and everything she had said seriously; that he, who himself practiced loyalty, assumed that loyalty was a life principle of hers, too.

Oh, if he knew!

She was so ashamed she did not dare to speak or approach him.

He drew himself up energetically, and his forehead glowed with the wrathful will, which from the first had intimidated her.

"Listen," he said. "After everything you've told me, I know I acted on a false assumption. You are not neglected, the world has not done you wrong. On the contrary, you are protected and cared for, and you're looking forward to a future, no matter how uncertain it may now be. You would lose all that through me. The instant your friend were to suspect my existence, he would, of course, withdraw his support. And all the others who now constitute your world would go with him."

Lilly wanted to burst out laughing, and give vent to her utter contempt for everything that had constituted her former life. But another thought instantly restrained her. Dr. Rennschmidt must continue to think that Richard should not suspect his existence. To defy her past and present was to bring about a catastrophe which would irremediably expose the wretchedness of her situation. She might be his only in dark secret hours.

He continued:

"What I have to offer in return is nothing. I have nothing but my work—you know. And even my work is still in the clouds. Why, I'm not even certain of myself. If I think of what I have just—" He turned his eyes aside.

"Of course, if you don't love me," said Lilly, dejectedly.

He threw himself in front of her, placing one knee on a vacant part of the seat of her chair, and putting his arms about her body.

"Have mercy on me. You see how I'm suffering. Don't make it harder for me. Every day, every hour, I should say to myself: 'Over in America there's a man toiling and moiling for her. He doesn't write simply because he's ashamed to admit that he has accomplished nothing on account of his mangled body.' I can't conceive any other motive for his silence. A man doesn't forget a woman like you. In the meantime I sit here with you in secret, and hold you in my arms. I don't know—I—a person can debauch, he can commit adultery—so far as I'm concerned it wouldn't matter. But to rob a poor cripple of his all—I think the lowest scoundrel would draw the line at that. I don't know how I'll get over it—" He collapsed. His forehead hit against the arm of Lilly's chair, and dry sobs shook his body. "But—it would be better—immediately—on the spot—better than later—when it's too late—for both—of us."

The blow had fallen. How cleverly she thought she had garbled the truth, and here she was caught in her own net of lies.

"For God's sake," she screamed, "do you mean to say you will—"

He rose to his feet.

"Farewell," he said. "Think of me in peace. Thank you."

"If I tell him the truth, he'll be all the more certain to go," she thought, looking about helplessly.

His hands, stretched toward her, were waiting, his eyes hung on her thirstily, as if to drink in the picture forever.

"I will plant myself at the door," she thought, "and throw myself on him, and stifle him with kisses."

But the desire not to lose his respect made her small and timorous.

"Not this instant," she implored, clasping his hands. "One hour—one parting hour—just one."

He gently extricated his hands from her grasp, and turned to the door.

Raised to her full height, Lilly stood in the centre of the room in her blue Venus robe and held out her hand to him. The wide sleeves fell away and revealed the mature womanly beauty of her arms.

"If he sees me this way," she thought, "he will still be mine."

But he did not turn about. He reeled. His forehead struck against the half-open door.

All of a sudden he seemed to have been wiped out of existence, and with him the light of the world. A swarm of bees buzzed about her head, and in the darkness enveloping her, she sank through the floor, deeper, deeper, into the canal—a club dealt her a blow on her forehead—and all was over.

At first it sounded like a chirping of birds, then like the murmur of a mighty throng in some wide sunny place; and then only two voices sounded, one a man's, the other a woman's. They kept up an eager, whispered conversation.

The cook—Maggie—and the lackey with the mischievous smile. Of course, that's who they were.

The colonel would enter the next instant and want her to be his wife.

Something cool and damp dropped soothingly on her aching head. Just as then.

"So I'll have to go through all that again," she thought in terror, and she began to cry and entreat:

"Oh, colonel, please let me go. I'm much too bad for you! Oh, dear colonel."

"For God's sake, she's raving!" said the man. After all he wasn't the horrid lackey.

Oh, how deliciously at ease she lay in the spell of that voice, in which a home-like note quivered solicitously.

"He didn't go at any rate." The thought tranquillised her, and she settled herself more comfortably on the pillow they had placed under her neck on the floor. If she had known his first name, she would have spoken to him. Why, how disgraceful not to know his first name yet. So she merely raised her arms a little toward him.

Instantly he was kneeling beside her, stroking her hands.

"Keep real quiet," he said, "real, real quiet."

"Will everything be all right now?" she asked, smiling up to him in blissful peace.

Yes, yes, everything would be all right. Ways and means would be found for their remaining together—like two friends, like a brother and sister. They wouldn't part—no, no, they wouldn't part. Nobody need be tortured so terribly as that.

Lilly shuddered and thought of the moment when the light about her had gone out, and she had sunk into the wet, slimy depths.

Thus life would have been without him.

But now they would wander toward the dawning sun hand in hand like brother and sister in innocent gaiety, liberated and purified.

Inconceivable happiness!

Strange that neither of them had hit upon the idea sooner.

She groped for his arm and with a contented sigh nestled her cheek in his hollow hand.

But Adele, who all the while had considerately been looking out of the window, thought the compress ought to be changed, because the wound on Lilly's forehead was still bleeding.