The anonymous note was inclosed in the letter to Jansen. Julie had added nothing but the words: "I shall be at home all day to-morrow. Come and give me back my faith in mankind and my own heart. "Your Julie." CHAPTER VIII. On this very afternoon Felix had carried out a resolution that he had long had in mind, and had sought out the two friends, Elfinger and Rosenbusch, in their own quarters. They occupied two rooms in the third story of a somewhat tumble-down house, which, situated in one of the quaint old streets of the city, concealed its little fantastically-framed windows under a far-projecting roof, like purblind eyes under bushy eyebrows. Felix had often passed without ever having persuaded himself to enter the untidy-looking vestibule, and climb the dark stairs. To-day, since the dissipation of the previous night and the fact of its being Sunday condemned him to idleness, he determined to fulfill at length the duty he owed to civility. Moreover, he had begun the day before to take a great interest in Elfinger, and wished very much to have an hour's more intimate talk with him. Luckily he chanced, at his first attempt, to knock at the right door, although, on account of the absolute darkness on the upper landing, it was impossible to make out the names; and, upon entering, he saw Elfinger jump up hastily from a chair, where he had been sitting apparently entirely unoccupied. As the street, which was not especially lively even on a weekday, reposed to-day in the most profound Sunday quiet, Felix wondered what it could have been that had held his attention there, especially when he noticed that the actor, who was generally so ready and self-possessed, showed evident signs of embarrassment as he hastened forward to welcome him, and, as if to keep him away from the window, forced him to take a seat upon the sofa. But he soon recovered his easy bearing again. "You are looking at the walls," said he, "and are wondering that I still preserve these mementoes of my stage days, these pictures of great actors and my pretty colleagues of the fair sex, and even the obligatory laurel-wreath, with its satin ribbons, that is never lacking in any true actor's domicile. If my present employer should ever by chance condescend to visit his clerk, I should, it is true, have done far better had I hung up a bulletin of the stock boards instead of the lithograph of Seydelmann as _Mephistophiles_. But, as I am safe up here from all _haute finance_, I think I may be allowed, without injury to my reputation as a sound accountant, to surround myself with all those relics that I hold sacred, even that all-too-flaming sword over there, that drove me from my paradise of the footlights."