f hers. She knew that the centre warehouse in the
Ruden Platz opposite belonged to the brewers, Sach Brothers, by whom
Valcarm was employed. Of course it was necessary that the young man
should be among the workmen, who were always moving barrels about
before the warehouse, and that he should attend to his employers'
business. But he need not have made the sign, or kissed his hand,
when he stood hidden from all eyes but hers beneath the low dark
archway; nor, for the matter of that, need her eyes have been fixed
upon the gateway after she had once perceived that Ludovic was on the
Ruden Platz.

What would happen to her if she were to declare boldly that she loved
Ludovic Valcarm, and intended to become his wife, and not the wife of
old Peter Steinmarc? In the first place, Ludovic had never asked her
to be his wife;--but on that head she had almost no doubt at all.
Ludovic would ask her quickly enough, she was very sure, if only he
received sufficient encouragement. And as far as she understood the
law of the country in which she lived, no one could, she thought,
prevent her from marrying him. In such case she would have a terrible
battle with her aunt; but her aunt could not lock her up, nor starve
her into submission. It would be very dreadful, and no doubt all
good people,--all those whom she had been accustomed to regard as
good,--would throw her over and point at her as one abandoned. And
her aunt's heart would be broken, and the world,--the world as she
knew it,--would pretty nearly collapse around her. Nevertheless she
could do it. But were she to do so, would it not simply be that she
would have allowed the Devil to get the victory, and that she would
have given herself for ever and ever, body and soul, to the Evil One?
And then she made a compact with herself,--a compact which she hoped
was not a compact with Satan also. If they on one side would not
strive to make her marry Peter Steinmarc, she on the other side would
say nothing, not a word, to Ludovic Valcarm.

She soon learned, however, that she had not as yet achieved her
object by the few words which she had spoken to her aunt. Those words
had been spoken on a Monday. On the evening of the following Saturday
she sat with her aunt in their own room down-stairs, in the chamber
immediately below that occupied by Peter Steinmarc. It was a summer
evening in August, and Linda was sitting at the window, with some
household needlework in her lap, but engaged rat