r. He had proposed
to her twice, but that had been in each case to solve a difficulty for
her. And once he had taken her in his arms, but that was different. Even
then he had not said he loved her--had not even known it, to be exact.
Nor had Harmony realized what Peter meant to her until she had put him
out of her life.

The sight of the familiar gray coat, the scrap of conversation, so
enlightening as to poor Peter's quest, that Peter was growing thin and
white, made her almost reel. She had been too occupied with her own
position to realize Peter's. With the glimpse of him came a great
longing for the house on the Siebensternstrasse, for Jimmy's arms about
her neck, for the salon with the lamp lighted and the sleet beating
harmlessly against the casement windows, for the little kitchen with the
brick stove, for Peter.

Doubts of the wisdom of her course assailed her. But to go back meant,
at the best, adding to Peter's burden of Jimmy and Marie, meant the
old situation again, too, for Marie most certainly did not add to the
respectability of the establishment. And other doubts assailed her. What
if Jimmy were not so well, should die, as was possible, and she had not
let his mother see him!

Monia Reiff was very busy that day. Harmony did not leave the workroom
until eight o'clock. During all that time, while her slim fingers worked
over fragile laces and soft chiffons, she was seeing Jimmy as she had
seen him last, with the flower fairies on his pillow, and Peter, keeping
watch over the crowd in the Karntnerstrasse, looking with his steady
eyes for her.

No part of the city was safe for a young girl after night, she knew; the
sixteenth district was no better than the rest, rather worse in places.
But the longing to see the house on the Siebensternstrasse grew on her,
became from an ache a sharp and insistent pain. She must go, must see
once again the comfortable glow of Peter's lamp, the flicker that was
the fire.

She ate no supper. She was too tired to eat, and there was the pain. She
put on her wraps and crept down the whitewashed staircase.

The paved courtyard below was to be crossed and it was poorly lighted.
She achieved the street, however, without molestation. To the street-car
was only a block, but during that block she was accosted twice. She was
white and frightened when she reached the car.

The Siebensternstrasse at last. The street was always dark; the
delicatessen shop was closed, but in the w