lly at the picture, and sings before her mother's face the
self-same song that once, from that very arm-chair, that mother sang to
the little Sabine.

At that moment a cloaked figure is gliding across the ground floor.
Balbus, who is superintending the great scales, stands in the arched
room, casts a half glance at the figure, and thinks to himself, with
surprise, "That is rather like Anton." The porters are closing a chest,
and the eldest, turning round accidentally, sees a shadow thrown by a
lantern on the wall, and, leaving off hammering for a moment, says, "I
could almost have fancied that was Mr. Wohlfart." And in the yard a
vehement barking and leaping is heard, and Pluto runs in frantically to
the servants, wags his tail, barks, licks their hands, and, in his own
way, tells the whole story. But even the servants know nothing, and one
of them says, "It must have been a ghost; I have lost sight of it."

Then the door of Sabine's room opens. "Is it you, Franz?" said she,
interrupting her song. No one answered. She turned round, her eyes fixed
wistfully upon the figure at the door. Then her hand trembled and
clasped the back of the chair, while he hurried toward her, and in
passionate emotion, not knowing what he was doing, knelt down near the
chair into which she had sunk, and laid his head on her hand. That was
Anton. Not a word was spoken. Sabine gazed on the kneeling form as at
some beatific vision, and gently laid her other hand on his shoulder.

She does not ask why he is come, nor whether he is free from the glamour
that led him away. As he kneels before her, and she looks into his eyes,
that tenderly and anxiously seek hers, she understands that he is
returning to the firm, to her brother, to her.

"How long you have been away!" said she, reproachfully, but with a
blissful smile upon her face.

"Ever have I been here!" said Anton, passionately. "Even in the hour
when I left these walls I knew that I was giving up all of joy--all of
happiness that I could hope to know; and now I am irresistibly impelled
to come and tell you how it is with me. I worshiped you as a holy image
while living near you. The thought of you has been my safety when far
away. It has protected me in solitude, in an irregular life, in great
temptation. Your form has ever risen protectingly between me and that of
another. Often have I seen your eyes fixed upon me as of yore--often
have you raised your hand to warn me of the danger I was