A light broke in on his mind, a pang like a dagger-thrust stabbed his heart. By the light of his own love he read her guarded secret. No wonder he had wooed her in vain. Her heart belonged to noble, handsome Francis Murray. The German professor was watching them both. As he saw them gazing into each other’s eyes he started violently: “What! has she learned to love him, after all? Must I lose her--my love, my love?” he thought in sudden agony; and, rising impulsively, made his way to the box. CHAPTER XXIV. PROFESSOR DOEPKIN’S HEROISM. Professor Doepkin opened the door of the box, and paused, his heart throbbing in a fashion quite strange for a staid German devoted to scientific researches. Emmett Harlow looked around, and, quickly advancing, drew him forward, presenting him to each of the ladies in turn, making Italy the last one. And he watched, with a keen, almost breathless, anxiety, the meeting between his German friend and his dark-eyed love. He was close enough to see that the man caught his breath, with a stifled gasp of emotion, before the beauty of the young girl. She stood before him, a slender, stately creature, graceful as a young palm-tree, her dark head lifted with a staglike motion, her eyes beaming with a subtile fire. Her gown was of white, very soft and fine and clinging, with white chrysanthemums for the corsage-bouquet. On her bare throat and arms were strings of lustrous pearls clasped with diamonds, and a Grecian fillet, of the same pure jewels, bound the dark, curly locks to the proud young head. The pure white costume was a trying one, but the brilliancy of her coloring, the gleaming eyes, the coral lips, the sea-shell glow of her cheeks made an exquisite contrast. The German’s blue-gray eyes gleamed beneath their disfiguring glasses with keen admiration, and he bowed low before the exquisite creature, who was murmuring, in a voice of flutelike melody: “I have been wishing to know you ever since I first heard of you from Mr. Harlow.” “I thank you,” he replied huskily, and in another moment found himself seated by her side in the chair that generous Emmett had vacated for his benefit. But the curtain was rising, and Bernhardt, that incarnation of genius, was advancing across the stage. They gave her all their attention now, or at least they pretended to do so, but this newly introduced pair never lost for one moment the thrilling consciousness of each other’s presence. At the meeting of their eyes an electric shock had seemed to thrill from heart to heart. Italy could remember nothing like it except her first meeting with Francis Murray, when her heart had seemed for a moment to suspend its beating before the magnetic force of the man’s personality. She felt her face burning and her heart beating wildly at the German’s proximity, but the long lashes drooped to her cheeks, and she gazed steadily at the stage.