ng; "if _I_ were a friend of the
countess, I should do the very same thing; but being her lover, I
cannot be expected to take such a disinterested view of the case.
Moreover, my labor would be thrown away; for, _entre nous_, she is too
much in love with me."

I felt that if I stayed a moment longer we should inevitably quarrel.
I therefore rose, somewhat abruptly, and pulled on my overcoat,
averring that I was tired and should need a few hours of sleep before
embarking in the morning.

"Well," he said, shaking my hand heartily, as we parted in the hall,
"if ever you should happen to visit Denmark again, you must promise me
that you will look me up. You have a standing invitation to my future
estate."

III.

Some three years later I was sitting behind my editorial desk in a
newspaper office in Chicago, and the impressions from my happy winter
in Copenhagen had well nigh faded from memory. The morning mail was
brought in, and among my letters I found one from a Danish friend with
whom I had kept up a desultory correspondence. In the letter I found
the following paragraph:

"Since you left us, Dannevig has been going steadily down hill,
until at last his order of Dannebrog just managed to keep him
respectable. About a month ago he suddenly vanished from the social
horizon, and the rumor says that he has fled from his numerous
creditors, and probably now is on his way to America. His
resources, whatever they were, gradually failed him, while his
habits remained as extravagant as ever. If the popular belief is to
be credited, he lived during the two last years on his prospect of
marrying the Countess von Brehm, which prospect in Copenhagen was
always convertible into cash. The countess, by the way, was
unflinching in her devotion to him, and he would probably long ago
have led her to the altar, if her family had not so bitterly
opposed him. The old count, it is said, swore that he would
disinherit her if she ever mentioned his name to him again; and
those who know him feel confident that he would have kept his word.
The countess, however, was quite willing to make that sacrifice,
for Dannevig's sake; but here, unfortunately, that cowardly
prudence of his made a fool of him. He hesitated and hesitated long
enough to wear out the patience of a dozen women less elevated and
heroic than she is. Now the story goes that the old count, wishing
at all hazards