yes, and, taking his trembling hand in hers, she
said, "God be praised, you are mine again, and I am all yours now: I've
just sent the geometer about his business for good and all. It's been
boiling in me a long time, and at last it ran over. Oh, I'm so glad! I
don't know what to do. I know whom I belong to now, and I belong to
you, and will belong to you, no matter what happens. What makes you
look so cross? A'n't you glad, too, that there's an end of this lying?"

She straightened his cap, which had been pushed to one side of his
head. Florian suffered her to say and do what she liked. He awoke from
a dream of vice, blood, and horror, to find himself in the arms of love
and peace. He almost recoiled from this true-hearted love which came to
him in the abyss of his degradation. Nothing had been left him but his
poor, wasted life, which he would so gladly have thrown off likewise:
now he learned to prize it again when he saw another life twined so
confidingly around it. Smiling with a mixture of sadness and glee, he
said at last, "Come, Crescence: let's go."

Crescence made no objection, though she could not help looking up with
a smile at hearing the musicians strike up a fresh waltz: full as her
heart was, she would gladly have danced a little, though she refrained
from saying so,--not so much to guard against misunderstanding as
because it made her happy just to live according to Florian's pleasure.

Near the front door Schlunkel was sitting over his wine without a
companion. To the astonishment of Crescence, he asked Florian to drink
with him; and Florian not only acknowledged the salutation, but said to
her, "Go on a little: I'll come right-away."

She waited for him on the front door-steps. Schlunkel said, "Well,
where's my money?"

"I can't pay you now: I can't cut it out of my ribs."

"Then you must give me the knife there in pawn."

"Oh, now, just wait till to-morrow night: do. If I don't give it to you
then, you shall have it double."

"Oh, yes: you can promise it double; but who's to give it to me?"

"I am."

"Will you come to me to-morrow night?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm agreed."

Florian passed on, and when Crescence asked him, "What does that wretch
want of you?" he blushed like a fire-thief, and answered, "Nothing: he
wanted me to sell him my knife."

"Don't let him have it: he'd murder somebody with it."

Florian shuddered; and it pained him to see the undoubting faith with
which Crescence