accurate, as Pilar must have been
at least two or three years old at the time, but mystic raptures take
no count of time. "My life is a continuation of hers. Your Spanish love
inherited the soul of your little Russian. Thus I have been yours since
my birth--and before. I loved you before ever I knew you. I have had a
presentiment of you, have felt and expected you from the beginning.
Hence my troubled seeking all the time, hence my horror and shuddering
when I discovered that I was mistaken, that it was not the one I
yearned for whose image I bore secretly in my heart. Now I see why I
was so irresistibly drawn to you from the first moment I set eyes on
you. The man of my dreams stood in bodily shape before me. Here at last
was my heart's dear image in flesh and blood. I had no need to get to
know you; I knew you already. My own, my Wilhelm."

Real tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke, and Wilhelm was not
sufficiently blase to scoff at the doting nonsense of a love-sick
woman. Love has enormous power, and at its heat all firmness, all
resistance, melts away. Pilar's affection filled Wilhelm with heartfelt
emotion and gratitude. He denied himself the right of judging her,
suspecting or doubting her, or of discovering dark spots upon her
shining orb. As she was forever at his side, and made it her sole care
to occupy him entirely, body and soul, his whole world was soon filled
by her and her alone. Wherever he looked his eyes fell upon her; she
intercepted his view on all sides. Her shadow fell even upon his past,
as far back as his childhood. He failed to notice that whole days
passed now without his giving a thought to Schrotter or Paul, and he
was quite surprised when he discovered that he had left a letter from
the former unanswered for a week. His former life began to fade and
grow dim, and, compared to the sun-flooded, glowing present, looked
like the dark background of a courtyard beside an open space in the
full blaze of a summer day.

The whole society of the place was deeply interested in the handsome
couple, who took so little trouble to conceal their love. The young
people thought it most affecting, the older ones, especially the
ladies, turned up their noses, with the remark that even people on
their honeymoon might put some restraint upon themselves on the beach,
or in the street. Wilhelm and Pilar were quite unconscious of the talk
for which they furnished the material. They had no eyes for anybody bu