rn."

I was resting during the fatigues of dressing the next day, when my host
tapped at my door. He looked graver and sterner than I had ever seen him
do before; he sat down almost before I had begged him to do so.

"He is not worthy of her," he said. "He drinks brandy right hard; he
boasts of his success at play, and"--here he set his teeth hard--"he
boasts of the women who have loved him. In a village like this, sir,
there are always those who spend their evenings in the gardens of the
inns; and this man, after he had drank his fill, made no secrets; it
needed no spying to find out what he was, else I should not have been
the one to do it."

"Thekla must be told of this," said I. "She is not the woman to love any
one whom she cannot respect."

Herr Mueller laughed a low bitter laugh, quite unlike himself. Then he
replied,--

"As for that matter, sir, you are young; you have had no great experience
of women. From what my sister tells me there can be little doubt of
Thekla's feeling towards him. She found them standing together by the
window; his arm round Thekla's waist, and whispering in her ear--and to
do the maiden justice she is not the one to suffer such familiarities
from every one. No"--continued he, still in the same contemptuous
tone--"you'll find she will make excuses for his faults and vices; or
else, which is perhaps more likely, she will not believe your story,
though I who tell it you can vouch for the truth of every word I say."
He turned short away and left the room. Presently I saw his stalwart
figure in the hill-side vineyard, before my windows, scaling the steep
ascent with long regular steps, going to the forest beyond. I was
otherwise occupied than in watching his progress during the next hour;
at the end of that time he re-entered my room, looking heated and
slightly tired, as if he had been walking fast, or labouring hard; but
with the cloud off his brows, and the kindly light shining once again
out of his honest eyes.

"I ask your pardon, sir," he began, "for troubling you afresh. I believe
I was possessed by the devil this morning. I have been thinking it over.
One has perhaps no right to rule for another person's happiness. To have
such a"--here the honest fellow choked a little--"such a woman as Thekla
to love him ought to raise any man. Besides, I am no judge for him or
for her. I have found out this morning that I love her myself, and so the
end of it is, that if you, sir, who are s