A youthful attachment, formed in his gymnasium days and continued through his student years, despite many breaks and reconciliations, was rumored to be on the point of becoming an engagement. But as yet no word had been spoken; and, indeed, even an exchange of letters had been interdicted by the stern father. The young man had thought of her less than usual this past year, but had excused himself on the ground of absorbing study. Of his old companions, only one, a civil engineer, had settled in the town. This good comrade insisted upon sharing his bachelor quarters with his friend during his stay. They met at the station, the newly-fledged doctor arriving by an evening train; and midnight found them still exchanging experiences at the café whither they had gone for supper. "You are awaited with impatience, Philip," said the engineer. "Papa Stadtrath asked me yesterday whether you did not intend to display yourself in the full splendor of your new honors to your native town. I answered evasively. You ought not to accept engagements at once, but devote the first two or three days to rest. For, listen! You are looking pale and nervous; the fatigues of your examination show plainly upon your face." That he had judged correctly of his friend's condition became evident as soon as they left the café. They had drank but lightly; yet, directly the young doctor found himself in the open air, his head swam, he grew unsteady on his feet and began to talk so boisterously, swinging his walking-stick against the windows as they went along, that his friend, fearing that Philip might meet some acquaintance and introduce himself anew in this disgraceful fashion, took a roundabout way home, through Ghost Lane, where they were sure of being unobserved. Locking his arm in that of his friend, he piloted him along, keeping in the shadow of the aristocratic houses, past the "Good Shepherd," "Noah's Dove," and the "Rose of Sharon," in which no sound was heard and from whose grated windows no light shone forth. They had just reached the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas," when the riotous young man stood suddenly still, shook himself loose from his friend by a violent gesture, and declared that he was ready to challenge all the spooky spirits of the lane--which he now, for the first time, recognized. He proposed to thrust them through with the weapons of science till they were frightened back into the nebulous nothingness whence only the baldest superstition had suffered them to creep forth. This should be his first service to his native town, which, to its own shame, had tolerated this relic of Egyptian darkness, or worse, of Medievalism, here in its midst, at the end of the nineteenth century.