en he was beginning for the fourth time, he
suddenly remembered that he was not alone, and that Schrotter was
sitting there watching him. He folded the letter in confusion. He had
not the courage to say anything, or even to look at his friend, but
dropped his hands and his head, and cast down his miserable eyes.

Schrotter was the first to break the silence.

"I must beg you once more to forgive me for opening the letter. Of
course, I could not have an idea--"

"No," said Wilhelm in a low voice, "it is for me to ask your
forgiveness for not having been open with you. But I had every
intention of making good my fault. It was for that I asked you to meet
me at Wittenberg."

"Spare yourself the telling of anything that might be painful to you,"
said Schrotter, with kindly forethought. "I can guess the drift of it,
and now understand your last letter. I thought you would probably be in
a frame of mind to need a friend near you, and so I came without delay."

"I will not leave you to guess anything," Wilhelm returned, and pressed
Schrotter's hand. "I will tell you all; it is an absolute necessity to
me, and will, at the same time, be a kind of atonement."

And he began his confession in a low, dull voice, and with downcast
eyes, like a sinner acknowledging a shameful deed, and Schrotter
listened to him gravely and in silence, like a priest before whom some
poor oppressed soul is casting down its burden of guilt. Wilhelm kept
nothing back, neither the mad intoxication of the first weeks, nor the
bitter humiliation of the last. He disclosed Pilar's passion and his
own weakness, the pagan sensuality and the artifices of the woman's
insatiable love, and the unworthy part he had played in her house
before the servants and strangers. He spoke of his tormenting doubts as
to the justice of his actions, and concluded: "And now, tell me, shall
I answer this letter?"

"What are you thinking of?" cried Schrotter, when Wilhelm stopped
speaking, and looked at him in anxious expectation. "Your only plan now
is to keep dark. If, notwithstanding your silence, they write to you
again, I would advise you to burn the letters unread. That will demand
a certain amount of fortitude, no doubt, but as the letters will come
to my address, I will do it for you, if you authorize me."

Wilhelm tried hard to make up his mind.

"No, do not burn them unread," he said, after a pause; "open the
letters, and then judge for yourself, in each case, wh