w-sleeve, a plate of cold meat by the judge's place, placing
the bottle of beer beside it. And as she did so she laughed at the
weary little man so that all her white teeth were displayed.

And this must he bear too, to make his comfort complete! Let them eat
who would! Soon he was sitting upstairs in the corner of the sofa in
his own room; outside the darkness of a spring night came down, and a
girl's voice was singing as if in emulation of the nightingales; that
must be the little brunette, Adelaide. At last he heard it sounding up
from the depths of the garden.

He did not stir until the judge stood before him.

"Now, I should really like to know, Frank--are you bewitched or
am I? What is the matter? Where is madame? The little black thing
downstairs, who seems to have fallen out of the clouds, says she is
'gone.'--Gone? What does it mean?"

"Gone!" repeated Frank Linden. It sounded so strange that his friend
started.

"Something has happened, Frank,--that old woman, the mother-in-law, has
done it. Oh, these women!"

"No, no, it is that affair with Wolff."

The judge gave vent to a long whistle, then he sat down beside Linden
and clapped him on the shoulder.

"We'll manage _him_, Frank," he said, comfortingly, "and _she_ will
come back, she _must_ come back; you will not even need to ask her. But
it was the most foolish thing she could do to run away."

And he began to describe a case that had come up in Frankfort a short
time before on the ground of wilful desertion.

Linden sprang up.

"Spare me your law cases," he said roughly. "Do you suppose I would
bring her back by force?"

"And what if she will not come of herself, Frank?"

"She will come," he replied, shortly.

"And that scoundrel Wolff?"

Frank Linden gave his friend a cigar and took one himself, though he
did not light it, and as he sat down again he said:

"You can ask that? Have I been in the habit of putting up with
imposition, Richard?"

"No, but on what does the man found his claim?"

Frank shrugged his shoulders. "I told you before, that he declared when
I turned him out, that he would know how to secure his rights. He is
ill now, however," he added.

"Oh, that is fatal!" lamented the judge. He was silent, for just then
the full, deep girl's voice came up from the garden:

"Du hast mir viel gegeben,
Du schenktest mir dein Herz,
Du nahmst mir Alles wieder,
Und liessest mir den