e burgomaster seized his hat, which hung, between some
cavalry pistols and a plain, substantial sword, on the only wall of his
room not perfectly bare.

The torturing anxiety that filled his mind, would no longer allow him to
remain in the house.

He would have his horse saddled, and ride to meet the expected
messenger.

Ere leaving the room, he paused a moment lost in thought, then
approached the writing-table to sign some papers intended for the
town-hall; for his return might be delayed till night.

Still standing, he looked over the two sheets he had spread out before
him, and seized the pen. Just at that moment the door of the room gently
opened, and the fresh sand strewn over the white boards creaked under
a light foot. He doubtless heard it, but did not allow himself to be
interrupted.

His wife was now standing close behind him. Four and twenty years his
junior, she seemed like a timid girl, as she raised her arm, yet did not
venture to divert her husband's attention from his business.

She waited quietly till he had signed the first paper, then turned her
pretty head aside, and blushing faintly, exclaimed with downcast eyes:

"It is I, Peter!"

"Very well, my child," he answered curtly, raising the second paper
nearer his eyes.

"Peter!" she exclaimed a second time, still more eagerly, but with
timidity. "I have something to tell you."

Van der Werff turned his head, cast a hasty, affectionate glance at her,
and said:

"Now, child? You see I am busy, and there is my hat."

"But Peter!" she replied, a flash of something like indignation
sparkling in her eyes, as she continued in a voice pervaded with a
slightly perceptible tone of complaint: "We haven't said anything to
each other to-day. My heart is so full, and what I would fain say to you
is, must surely--"

"When I come home Maria, not now," he interrupted, his deep voice
sounding half impatient, half beseeching. "First the city and the
country--then love-making."

At these words, Maria raised her head proudly, and answered with
quivering lips:

"That is what you have said ever since the first day of our marriage."

"And unhappily--unhappily--I must continue to say so until we reach
the goal," he answered firmly. The blood mounted into the young wife's
delicate cheeks, and with quickened breathing, she answered in a hasty,
resolute tone:

"Yes, indeed, I have known these words ever since your courtship, and as
I am my father's daughte