ed to me to be so hopelessly without love that I could not help it:
I just sat down before that doll and cried. The poor man! The poor old
man!"

"Strange, really strange," repeated Daniel.

After a while, as if conscious of his guilt, he took a seat by the
table. Eleanore however got up, went to the window, and leaned her
forehead against the glass.

"Come here to me, Eleanore," said Daniel in a changed tone of voice.

She came. He took her hand and looked into her face. "How in the world
have you been keeping the house going all this time?" he asked, viewing
the situation in the light of his guilty conscience.

Eleanore let her eyes fall to the floor. "I have done my writing, and I
have had considerable success with the flowers. I have even been able to
save a little money. Don't look at me like that, Daniel. It was nothing
wonderful I did; you have no reason to feel especially grateful to me."

He drew her down on his knees, and threw his arms around her shoulders.
"You probably think I have forgotten you," he said sorrowfully, and
looked up, "that I have forgotten my Eleanore. Forget my Eleanore? My
spirit sister? No, no, dear heart, you have known for a long while that
we have begun our common pilgrimage--for life, for death."

Eleanore lay in his arms; her face was perfectly white; her body was
rigid; her eyes were closed.

Daniel kissed her eyes: "You must hold me, keep me, even when it seems
that I have left you," he murmured.

Then he carried her in his arms through the door into his room.

"I have so longed, I have been so full of longing," she said, pressing
her lips to his neck.

XIII

Before one could realise it, winter had come, and the Place with the
Church was covered with snow.

Eleanore had gone skating; when she returned she sat down in the living
room to wait for Daniel. There she sat with her fur cap on her head,
holding her skates in her hand by the cord: she was tired--and she was
thinking.

Daniel entered the room and greeted her; she looked up, and said with a
gentle voice: "I am with child, Daniel; I found it out to-day."

He fell on his knees, and kissed the tips of her fingers. Eleanore drew
a deep breath; a smile of dream-like cheerfulness spread over her face.

The following day Daniel went to the Town Hall, and made arrangements to
have the banns posted.

Hardly had Philippina heard that Daniel and Eleanore were to get married
in Febr