The Gropphusens' house, with its closed shutters and lowered blinds, looked half asleep; but Hannah's windows were as usual draped in their pale pink curtains. Reimers went through the garden and into the porch. He hesitated a moment and listened; not a sound was to be heard. Then he rang. The electric bell echoed sharply in the deep stillness; but everything remained quiet. He could only hear the beating of his pulses. He rang for the second time, but silence still reigned. Had the unhappy wife returned to her parents? Was the household broken up? Then a door banged within the house, and light steps approached. The chain was taken down and the key turned in the lock. Hannah Gropphusen stood on the threshold, a weary expression on her pale face; she was clad in a loose flowing gown of thin white silk. Her shoulders scarcely seemed fit to bear the weight of anything heavier than this light airy texture. Her small head was bowed as though unable to support the burden of her hair. Her eyes expressed the astonished query: "How come you here?" And she stepped back hesitatingly. "I have come on business," stammered Reimers. Hannah opened the door and signed to him to enter. Her noiseless steps preceded him as she led him into her own little sitting-room. She seated herself on the edge of the sofa and pointed to a chair. "Won't you sit down?" she said gently. But Reimers remained standing, gazing down upon the woman he loved. At last he was near her; he could see her and hear her voice. She raised her eyes to his, as if asking why he would not be seated. Their glances met, greeting and caressing each other in the first shy emotion of love. The man threw himself down before the woman, covering her feet, her dress, her hands, her knees with kisses, and sobbing out the irrepressible confession of his love, over and over again, in unceasing repetition: "I love you! how I love you! I love you! how I love you!" Hannah suffered his protestations silently. An unspeakable bliss weighed upon her and paralysed her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and as though in the far distance she heard the soothing call of love: "I love you! how I love you!" She bent over him with a glad, loving look. Her deep blue eyes shone darkly and protectingly, like the night sky. "Hannah, I love you. I have always, always loved you. Only you, Hannah, only you!" Her beautiful hand cooled his burning forehead. "I know," she whispered. And he asseverated: "Even when I was hovering round Marie Falkenhein, it was you, you that I loved. You, only you! Hannah, do you believe me?" She nodded: "I know." Suddenly her aspect changed, and instead of the overpowering happiness came a hard, bitter expression. "I know, too," she continued, in a low voice, "why you have broken off with Marie Falkenhein."