"May I lift your braid?" I asked her. "What a lovely braid--how very beautiful it is!" "My friend has kissed it," she said, and pushed back my hand. "Forgive me," I said then, and my heart pounded more and more. "May I not look at your ring--it shines so golden and is also so very beautiful. I should like to look at it and admire it for your sake." But to this she also said no and added: "My friend has given it to me." Then she moved still further away from me. "Please forgive me," I said.... Time passes, the train rolls on, the journey is so long, so long and wearisome, there is nothing we can do except listen to the rumbling of the wheels. An engine flares past, it sounds like iron striking iron, and I start, but she does not; she is probably entirely absorbed in thoughts about her friend. And the train rolls on. Then, for the first time, she glances at me, and her eyes are strangely blue. "It grows darker?" she says. "We are approaching a tunnel," I answer. And we rode through the tunnel. Some time passes. She glances at me, a trifle impatiently, and says: "It seems to me it grows dark again?" "We are drawing near the second tunnel, there are three altogether," I answer. "Here is a map--do you want to see?" "It frightens me," she says and moves closer to me. I say nothing. She asks me smilingly: "Did you say three tunnels? Is there one more besides this one?" "Yes--one more." We enter the tunnel; I feel that she is very close to me, her hand touches mine. Then it grows light again and we are once more in the open. We ride for a quarter of an hour. She is now so close to me that I feel the warmth from her. "You are welcome to lift my braid if you wish to," she says, "and if you care to look at my ring--why, here it is!" I held her braid and did not take her ring because her friend had given it to her. She smiled and did not offer it to me again. "Your eyes are so bright, and how white your teeth!" she said and grew confused. "I am afraid of that last tunnel--please hold my hand when we get to it. No--don't hold my hand; I didn't mean that, I was jesting; but talk to me." I promised to do what she asked me to. A few moments later she laughed and said: "I was not afraid of the other tunnels; only this one frightens me." She glanced at my face to see how I might answer, and I said: "This is the longest, too; it is exceedingly long." Her confusion was now at its highest. "But we are not near any tunnel," she cried. "You are deceiving me; there is no tunnel!" "Yes, there is, the last one--look!" And I pointed to my map. But she would see nothing and listen to nothing. "No, no,--there is no tunnel, I tell you there is none! But speak to me if there be one!" she added.