ands like two
faithful old friends? Must the parting be for ever?"

He turned and with a secret tremor, saw that she had risen and softly
approached him. Her face looked out from the gloom with a touchingly
mournful expression; she stood like a child pleading for forgiveness,
with her arms hanging at her side and her head bent so low that her
hair fell over her temples. "Edwin," she said softly, extending her
hand and raising her eyes to his. His heart was burning with love and
anguish. "Oh! Toinette," he cried, "farewell, farewell! Not a word
more. All is said, the sentence of death is uttered!" Mournfully she
held out her arms to him; he clasped her to his breast, pressed his
lips to her soft hair, felt for an instant her breath on his neck, then
tore himself away and rushed like a madman out of the room.

CHAPTER XIV.

It was a singular coincidence that on the very same day and almost at
the self-same hour another of the friends placed the decision of his
happiness or misery in a woman's hands, and received no more consoling
reply, nay was rejected in still more mysterious language than Edwin.

It happened thus. Mohr had gone to the little house on the lagune, as
indeed he did every day, to inquire about Fraeulein Christiane's health.
Neither he or any other man had seen her since the night of the
accident; for she had positively refused even to receive Marquard, who
had saved her life. She sat in the small room behind the kitchen, which
the old maid-servant had given up to her; the single grated window
looked out upon the canal and the bare, blackened chimney. Here she
bolted herself in and opened the door only at Leah's knock, but
remained mute even to her kindly inquiries, and during the first day
sat like a statue on the stool by the window, with her eyes intently
fixed upon the sullen waters below. It seemed as if she considered
herself in a self-chosen prison, separated from the world for life. She
touched none of the food her nurse brought, except a little soup and
bread, and the only time she had spoken was on the third day, when she
asked for some work. Since that time sitting always in the same place,
she had sewed from early morning until late at night, mended
underclothing, hemmed handkerchiefs, and answered all the young girl's
timid entreaties and questions only by a pressure of the hand and a
gloomy shake of the head.

The same cheerless report was all that co