could
have put that letter. Oh, my memory! my memory! I am growing so old."

He walked along the corridor and mounted the staircase into the second
story. The twilight of the short winter day had already darkened all
the comers. It was painfully still in the house, only the echo of his
own footsteps sounding in his ear. It was such a day as his friend had
predicted for him--horribly lonely and empty, it seemed to rest like a
heavy weight on this world-remote house. One cannot always read, cannot
always be busy, especially when the thoughts stray uneasily out over
forest and meadow to a distinct goal, and always return anxious and
doubting.

He stood in his room at the window and watched the snow flakes
fluttering down in the darkening air, and fell into a dream as he had
done every day for the last week. He gave himself up to it so entirely
that he fancied he could distinctly hear a light step behind him on the
carpet, and the soft tones of a woman's voice, saying, "Frank,
Frankie!" He turned and gazed into the dusky room. What if she were to
open the door now,--what if she should come in with the child in her
arms? Why should it not be, why could it not be? Were these walls not
strong enough, these rooms not cosy and homelike enough to hold such
happiness?

He began to walk up and down. Folly! Nonsense! What was he thinking of?
Oh, if he had never come here, or better still if she were only the
daughter of the foreman like her grandmother, and sat on the bench
before the little house under the lilac tree, then everything would be
so simple. He would not for the world enter that mad race for Gertrude
Baumhagen's money-bags, in which so many had already come to grief. But
her sweet friendship?--

And then he fell helpless again before the charm of her eyes.

He was suffering from those doubts, from those alternating fears and
hopes that torment every man who is in love. And Frank Linden in his
loneliness had long since acknowledged to himself that he only wanted
Gertrude Baumhagen to complete his happiness.

His was by no means a shy or retiring nature. On the contrary, he
possessed that modest boldness which seems so natural to some people on
whom society looks with favor. If he were owner of a large estate
instead of this "hole"--as the Judge designated Niendorf--he would
rather have asked to-day than to-morrow if she would be his wife,
without too great a shyness of the money-bags. But as it was, he could
not