ewhat, when he found
the young man was away from town much of the time.

The little tenement-house apartment was a lonely place, when he was
there, after Anna took up her new work and could come to it but once a
week and M'riar was a comfort to him. An astonishing companionship
grew up between the strangely differing pair. To save his ears he
taught her something about singing; to save her pride from gibings
from the other children in the block (who were irreverent and
sometimes made a little fun of Kreutzer) she saw to it that he was
always brushed when he went out. Indeed she made him very comfortable.

Monday afternoons were what made life worth living, though, to him. On
Monday afternoons there was no music at the beer-garden and Mrs.
Vanderlyn gave Anna, also, that time to herself so they had these
hours together, reunited.

Anna's absence from him among strangers was a constant worry and
humiliation to him. He reproached himself continually because his
poverty had made it necessary. She was at that age, he knew, when
maidens learn to love, and she must never learn to love until--until
he could go back, with her to his dear Germany, where were such men as
he would choose for her. And when would that be safe? Oh, when would
that be safe!

He wondered if it was not yet time to trust her with the secret which
he had concealed from her her whole life long. The temptation was
tremendous. Some day she would know why he had lived, must live a
fugitive. Must he wait on, for other weary years? He sat immersed in
thought of these things, while M'riar worked at making everything as
near to neat perfection as her training in the London lodging-house
made possible.

The old man's thoughts dwelt much upon young Vanderlyn. His Anna would
see much of him, ere long, when the young man's western trips were
ended. But she must not fall in love with him! It would not do for
Anna Kreutzer, daughter of the beer-garden flute-player, to marry an
American. But how, without revealing to her what he hid, could he be
certain that she understood this? He wondered if it had not been a
great mistake to let her go to Mrs. Vanderlyn, and then laughed
bitterly because he had not "let" her go; a grim necessity had forced
it--it, or something else which might have been much less desirable.

It was almost dinner-time when Anna came--radiantly beautiful, with
her crisp color heightened by the rapid run from her employer's in the
Vanderlyn's gre