woe of th' deepest abyss,
While mortals exclaim 'it is love.'"

"Love? Is the poor girl--"

"In love, and so deeply that her life is imperiled. Oh! my dear fellow,
these still waters!"

"And who in the world--But to be sure, from what I know of her, she'd
not confess it to you, or any other human being."

"A good family doctor needs no verbal confession in such cases. We've
other means of examining a feverish little heart--quiet noiseless
means. At first, its true, I was on the wrong track. I imagined--mind,
this is entirely between ourselves--that I myself was the fortunate
object and cause of this mysterious suffering. After all, it would not
have shown any want of taste in her, and with the romantic occasion of
our introduction--the night when we rescued Fraeulein Christiane from
drowning--who would have wondered if she had at first revered me as the
saving angel, then admired, and at last learned to love. And I confess
the bare thought cost me several sleepless nights--until about
midnight. You know what I think of love and matrimony, but my most
sacred prejudices were in danger of being vanquished, when I fancied
that a girl like this zaunkoenig's daughter could really want me for her
lawful husband. There's something about her which must make it
difficult, nay impossible for an honest man ever to be faithless to
her. I'm as good a conductor of heat as an iron stove, and opportunity
added fuel to the flames. Under the pretext of being obliged to watch
her, I daily spent an hour in her society, almost always alone; and
besides, just at that time, I'd had a quarrel with my little
nightingale. Adeline had been a little too enthusiastic about a
handsome Hungarian. So I took advantage of the holiday thus given my
heart, to make studies beside the lagune, to ascertain whether I could
change my sentiments and transform myself from an admirer of ladies in
general, to the adorer of one."

"And in what did these studies consist?" asked Edwin forcing a smile.

"That's _my_ secret," replied Marquard pathetically. "Enough I gave up
the game as I saw it was lost to me; but with the zeal of jealousy
searched for the man who stood in the way. My old sympathetic method
didn't leave me in the lurch this time."

"May one know--?"

"It's not my own invention. One of my colleagues in the dim past made
use of the stratagem. You know the story of the sick prince, who was in
love with his step-mother, and whose secr