"No matter what she knows or doesn't know--nonsense! You can be as brief as you want. Come, give me your hand on it. Good! And there's her house there. I will say adieu to you here; I have some business to attend to; and I will call for you this evening at the hotel, and we'll go and see the illumination together." "They are all so kind!" cried Felix, when he was alone; "they all want to help me to bear what is bitter and irremediable. But it is high time for me to try a change of air. Here--where they are all going to lead such happy and comfortable lives, and where every one breathes more freely and more healthily now that the storm of war has swept away the old mists and fogs--for me alone to go about with such a face among these good, contented people--no! I must go away from here, and the sooner the better. If I leave this evening, travel all night--to-morrow I can be deep in my work. I will beg Angelica to excuse me to Schnetz. She will be the first to understand that I am in no mood for illuminations." He had no sooner formed this resolution than he drew a long breath, and hastened his steps toward the house which Schnetz had pointed out to him. The gloaming had already come, and the first candles of the illumination were glowing in a few of the windows; but those at Angelica's house were dark. Up-stairs the door was opened for him by the old landlady, of whom Angelica hired her lodgings. The Fraeulein was at home, she said, pointing to the nearest door. He knocked with a beating heart, of which he felt fairly ashamed. A woman's voice called out "Come in." As he entered the dusky room, a slender figure rose from the sofa, on which it had had been idly sitting as if waiting for him. "Is it permitted me to come so late, my dear friend?" he said, advancing hesitatingly. The figure tottered forward to meet him, and now for the first time he recognized the features of the face--"Irene! Good God!" he cried, and involuntarily stood still; but the next moment he felt two arms encircling him, and burning lips pressed to his own, stifling every word and plunging his senses into a whirl of delirious joy. It was as if she wanted never to let him recover his speech again; as if she feared he might vanish from her arms forever, the moment she let him go. Even when she finally removed her lips from his and drew him, bewildered and trembling, upon the sofa at her side, she went on talking alone, as if any word that he might throw in would destroy the spell that had at last led the loved one to her side again. He had never seen her thus before; the last bar had fallen from her virgin heart; and a yielding woman, laughing and weeping in the sweetness of passion, lay upon his breast, with her arms around his neck.