iled. No one could say whether they laughed now.

He looked up with a swift, brusque gesture.

"They are all yours; you know it." The low voice rebuked her gently.
"For six years they are yours--all that I have done." The face was
turned toward her. It was filled with pleading and a kind of gentle
beauty, clumsy and sweet.

She did not look at it.

"There is one that I should like to hear," she said musingly. "You
played it once, years ago, on a comb. I have not heard it since." She
laughed sweetly.

Schubert smiled. The hurt look stole from his eyes.

"You will hear it--my 'Erlkoenig'?" he demanded.

She nodded.

"I will play it to you when I come back," he said contentedly.

She stopped short in the path.

"When you come back!" The subtle eyes were wide. They were not laughing.

"Ja, I shall----"

"Where are you going?"

He rubbed his great nose in the moonlight.

"Nein, I know not. I know I must go----"

She stopped him impatiently.

"You will not go!" she said. He turned his eyes and looked at her. After
a moment her own fell. "Why will you go?" she asked.

The face with its dumb look was turned toward her.

"That little song--it calls me," he said softly. "When it is done I will
come back again--to you."

She smiled under the lids.

"That little song--is it for me?" she asked sweetly.

"Ja, for you." He looked pleadingly at the downcast face. "The song--it
is very sweet; it teases me."

The lids quivered.

"It comes to me so close, so close!" He was silent, a rapt look of
listening in his face. It broke with a swift sigh. "Ach! it is gone!"

She glanced at him swiftly.

"I thought the songs came quickly."

He shook his head.

"The others, yes; but not this one. It is not like the others. It is so
sweet and gentle--far away--and pure like the snow.... It calls me--"
He broke off, gazing earnestly at the beautiful, high-bred face, with
its downcast eyes.

"Nein! I cannot speak it," he said softly. "But the song it will speak
it for me--when I come."

She lifted her head, and held out her hand with a gesture half shy and
very sweet.

The moonlight veiled her. "I shall wait," she said gently--"for the
song."

He held the slender hand for a moment in his own; then it was laid
lightly against his lips, and turning, he had disappeared among the
shadows.

V

"Hallo, Franz! Hallo--there!"

Two young men, walking rapidly along the low hedge that shuts in the Zum
Biersa