-"

"Hush," she said. "Go back to your ugly tun again. I'm not at all
satisfied with you, and am not to be conciliated by fine words so
easily. Reflect until to-morrow. I shall see you again toward evening."

"No, dearest," he answered hastily, "you must not do that. Beautiful
and worthy of you as it was to cast aside all scruples to-day, you must
not again expose yourself to gossip without cause. Did you see good
Madame Feyertag's face as we passed the shop door? I can't bear to have
people form such an opinion of you, and besides--suppose he should see
you when in the full possession of his senses and fall in love with
you? One fever is enough isn't it?"

"You're a fool," she answered laughing, but instantly becoming grave
again; "but if you'll write every day and give a full, very full
account of him, I'll stay at home. But reflect upon what I said to you.
Good night."

The droschky drove away, and Edwin looked after it till the dim lamps
vanished around the corner. For the first time in all these weeks it
did not seem to him impossible, but rather it seemed a blissful
certainty, that the ice between them would be broken and a spring time
arrive, which would make amends for all his tortures. At this moment
everything, even Balder's fate, receded into the background. Bare
headed and without a cloak, he stood for a long time in the gloomy
street, as if intoxicated by contending emotions, and did not feel the
first flakes of a November snow storm fluttering down upon him.

CHAPTER VIII.

Christiane did not return home at all that night.

Mohr, who had insisted that Franzelius must exchange with him and give
him the night watch, again sat at the window through all the long dark
hours uttering not a word, his eyes fixed steadily upon the door into
the courtyard. When Edwin, toward morning, started from a short
slumber, he found him still in the same position; his eyes were red and
fixed, his face grey and haggard. He gave contradictory, half comical,
half sulky answers, and altogether behaved so strangely, that Edwin,
who had no suspicion of his state of mind, declared he was sick and
insisted that he must go directly home and to bed.

He obeyed as mechanically as an automaton. In the courtyard below, the
maid-servant met him, and he learned from her that Madame Feyertag had
received a note from Fraeulein Christiane early that morning: the young
lady had been obliged to set ou