enes. A new ballet was to be performed, to hear and see which would
repay even an old habitue, let alone a whimsical fellow like myself,
who had not entered a theatre for ten years. Well, I could not escape
the experiment. He who has a doctor for a friend must occasionally
submit to try new remedies, and a ballet is better than a silver tube
in one's stomach."

He smiled,--a half-satisfied, half-mysterious smile.

"Play me the Moonlight Sonata," he asked again. "Life is beautiful,
Fraeulein Christiane, in spite of all the sorrows of the world. What
lovely roses you have in that vase! Permit me--"

He took a small bouquet, which was standing on the table, and pressed
it against his face. The full-blown flowers suddenly fell apart, and
the leaves covered the book.

"Oh! dear," said he, coloring with embarrassment, "I have done a fine
thing now. Will you forgive me, dear Fraeulein?"

"Certainly, Herr Doctor, if you will be reasonable now, and go up
stairs to sleep off your intoxication. For you are in a condition--You
must know how it happened."

"I? I did not know--"

"Any better than to ask me to play for you at half-past two o'clock in
the morning! We shall wake the people in the house, and others can see
us,--me from the opposite windows. And besides--"

She had risen, and now repressed the rest of the words that were on her
lips. After pacing several times up and down the heated room, which
contained little furniture except her bed, her piano, and a bookcase,
she pushed back her hair from her brow and shoulders, and folding her
bare arms across her chest, stood quietly at the window. A sigh heaved
the breast which had learned to keep a strict guard over its thoughts
and feelings. In this attitude she waited, with apparent calmness, for
him to take his leave.

"I must really seem a very singular person," he said, in a frank,
honest tone. "We have lived in the same house for months, and the only
use I have made of this vicinity, was by my first and only visit, when
I begged you not to play during certain hours, which I had selected for
study. Now I enter your room in the middle of the night, and take the
liberties of an old acquaintance. Forgive me, on account of my
disordered brain, dear Fraeulein, and--may you have a good night's
rest."

He bent his head slightly, and left the room.

As soon as she heard him go up stairs, she hurried into the little
ante-chamber, closed the outer door, bolted it, and the