It may not be! No, Charlotte; by all that is holy, it may not be! Think of your duty, do not forget it for a moment! Steel your heart, make it strong and firm! Cover your face with a mask, an impenetrable mask! No one must dream of what is going on in your breast--he least of all! A knock is heard at the door leading to her bedchamber. It is her maid coming to announce that Mr. Schiller awaits her in the reception-room. "Tell him to be kind enough to wait a few minutes. I will come directly." After a few minutes had expired, Charlotte von Kalb entered the reception-room with a clear brow and smiling countenance. Schiller had advanced to meet her, and, taking the tapering little hand which she extended, he pressed it fervently to his lips. "Charlotte, my friend, I come to you because my heart is agitated with stormy thoughts, for I know that my fair friend understands the emotions of the heart." "Emotions of the heart, Schiller?" she asked, laughing loudly. "Have we come to that pass again? Already another passion besides the beautiful Margaret Schwan and the little Charlotte von Wolzogen?" He looked up wonderingly, and their eyes met; Charlotte's cheeks grew paler in spite of her efforts to retain the laughing expression she had assumed. "How strangely you speak to-day, Charlotte, and how changed your voice sounds!" "I have taken cold, my friend," said she, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "You know very well that I cannot stand the cold; it kills me! But it was not to hear this you came to see me?" "No, that is very true," replied Schiller, in confusion. "I did not come for that purpose. I--why are your hands so cold, Charlotte, and why have you given me no word of welcome?" "Because you have not yet given me an opportunity to do so," she said, smiling. "It really looks as if you had come to-day rather in your capacity of regimental surgeon, to call on a patient, than as a poet, to visit an intimate acquaintance." "An intimate acquaintance!" exclaimed Schiller, throwing her hand ungently from him. "Charlotte, will you then be nothing more to me than an intimate acquaintance?" "Well, then, a good friend," she said quietly. "But let us not quarrel about terms, Schiller. We very well know what we are to each other. You should at least know that my heart sympathizes with all that concerns you. And now tell me, my dear friend, what brings you here at this unusual hour? It must be something extraordinary that induces the poet Schiller to leave his study at this hour. Well, have I guessed right? Is it something extraordinary?" "I don't know," replied Schiller, in some confusion. "You don't know!" exclaimed Charlotte, with a peal of laughter, which seemed to grate on Schiller's ear, for he recoiled sensitively, and his brow darkened.