--"

"Heaven above us! Heer Adrian," broke in Elsa in alarm, "are you--are
you--getting giddy?"

"She does not understand. Poor child, how should she?" he murmured in a
stage aside. Then he started again. "Yes, most adorable, best beloved,
I am giddy, giddy with gratitude to those fair hands, giddy with worship
of those lovely eyes----"

Now Elsa, unable to contain her merriment any longer, burst out
laughing, but seeing that her adorer's face was beginning to look as
it did in the dining-room before he broke the blood vessel, she checked
herself, and said:

"Oh! Heer Adrian, don't waste all this fine poetry upon me. I am too
stupid to understand it."

"Poetry!" he exclaimed, becoming suddenly natural, "it isn't poetry."

"Then what is it?" she asked, and next moment could have bitten her
tongue out.

"It is--it is--love!" and he sank upon his knees before her, where, she
could not but notice, he looked very handsome in the subdued light of
the room, with his upturned face blanched by sickness, and his southern
glowing eyes. "Elsa, I love you and no other, and unless you return that
love my heart will break and I shall die."

Now, under ordinary circumstances, Elsa would have been quite competent
to deal with the situation, but the fear of over-agitating Adrian
complicated it greatly. About the reality of his feelings at the moment,
at any rate, it seemed impossible to be mistaken, for the man was
shaking like a leaf. Still, she must make an end of these advances.

"Rise, Heer Adrian," she said gently, holding out her hand to help him
to his feet.

He obeyed, and glancing at her face, saw that it was very calm and cold
as winter ice.

"Listen, Heer Adrian," she said. "You mean this kindly, and doubtless
many a maid would be flattered by your words, but I must tell you that I
am in no mood for love-making."

"Because of another man?" he queried, and suddenly becoming theatrical
again, added, "Speak on, let me hear the worst; I will not quail."

"There is no need to," replied Elsa in the same quiet voice, "because
there is no other man. I have never yet thought of marriage, I have no
wish that way, and if I had, I should forget it now when from hour to
hour I do not know where my dear father may be, or what fate awaits him.
He is my only lover, Heer Adrian," and as Elsa spoke her soft brown eyes
filled with tears.

"Ah!" said Adrian, "would that I might fly to save him from all dangers,
as I rescued you