"My wife?--I merely told her I wished to bid you good-by at the station. I mean to telegraph her from Steinach that she need not expect me immediately, that I am going on a little sketching-trip. I shall write more to her from Würzburg, and explain my reasons for stealing away from her thus. A formal parting would have pained us both unnecessarily; and, God willing, we shall see each other again in a year or so. She is a very intelligent woman, much quicker and surer than I in all determinations, and she loves me too well not to wish for my good. I have considered all this during the past twenty-four hours. Have you changed your mind in the mean time? I have brought only the most necessary things with me," he continued hesitatingly--"I did not wish to cause any delay. I am sufficiently provided with money; I shall buy a trunk on the road--but why do you look at me so strangely, my lady?" "Dear friend," she said gently, "do you know that if I were not wiser than you, you would now commit an act of actual madness, in fact, a crime against yourself and your life's happiness?" "For heaven's sake, my lady--" "Be still! Do not speak a word, but listen to me. Only first answer me a little question honestly and frankly; is it not true that you are a little in love with me?" "My lady!" he stammered, in extreme embarrassment. He let his sketch-book fall, stooped for it, and occupied a long time in picking it up and dusting it. "You are right," she said, without smiling; "it was an artful question, and you need not answer it, for I know the truth already. Of course I am not angry with you for it, and you are not the first. It has come to me often enough when I have had less reason to be vain of it. But what have you imagined as the result?" He was silent. She, glancing sidewise at him, amused herself a little with the spectacle of his helpless confusion. "I will tell you," she continued; "it seems to you very romantic to allow yourself to be somewhat carried away, and to perform a little travel-romance in easy chapters, with pretty Italian landscapes for illustrations. To me also--I confess it--you are pleasing enough for me to find your company really desirable, as I am a lonely, discontented, and still unresigned woman. Indeed, that you may know it--for I shall claim no virtue which I do not possess--I have given myself some trouble--very little was needed--to turn your head. In fact, you seemed to me too good for a petty, provincial life in dressing-gown and slippers by the side of a worthy little goose such as I imagined your wife to be. I even represented to myself that I had a sort of mission to fulfil in saving an artistic soul from the curse of narrowness, or however you wish to express it. But I have become terribly ashamed." "My wife--" he said.