The German stole furtive glances at her while he seemed to be observing Madam Bernhardt’s grand conception of her part. Now and then he looked from her rather curiously at Mrs. Vale. The marble pallor of the exquisite blonde face, with its frame of golden locks and its tragic, deep-blue eyes, had a sort of fascination for him. “It is the face of a suffering angel,” he thought. “How could any one ever have believed her a murderess?” He was deeply interested in all that had been told him of this woman, and when the curtain fell on the third act he addressed some trifling remark to her about the play, just to hear her speak. She turned her dark-blue eyes on him and replied to him very pleasantly, for somehow she had been favorably impressed at first sight with Professor Doepkin. Italy drew back a little and listened in silent pleasure to the sound of his low and well-trained voice whose cadences thrilled her heart with strange delight. But suddenly he became aware that the others were listening to him with interest, and that moment he abruptly withdrew into himself as though overcome with shyness. Ralph and Emmett smiled at each other, and threw themselves into the breach, and the professor was extremely quiet all the rest of the time, but he kept his place at Italy’s side, and at the close of the play escorted her to the carriage and handed her in, even standing still a moment on the curbstone with a tender air to watch it roll away. “The old chap is coming out finely. He will not forget his dress-coat the next time he is to join a theater-party with Miss Vale,” laughed Ralph Allen. But the smitten German’s romance went even farther that night. Long after the midnight hour had struck, and the streets of Boston were almost deserted, he paced the snowy street across the way from Italy’s home, and gazed with yearning eyes up at the darkened windows, wondering which curtained casement belonged to her, his peerless goddess. Decidedly the professor was far gone, very far gone, on that road that every man travels once at least before he dies. All at once he seemed to realize it himself, and hurried abruptly away. “Ach, I was really making a fool of myself,” he grunted. “What if any one had seen me? At my age, too!” And he walked resolutely several blocks toward his boarding-house. All at once he stopped short and listened to the rising wind intently. “Am I dreaming, or am I crazed?” he muttered. “Perhaps my head is wrong, for I fancied _she_ was calling to me, praying me to return. It is the wind, I know, only the wind, but yet--I will go back!” And, impatient at his own folly, he yet resolutely retraced his steps. As he turned the corner nearest the house a man almost rushed past him, hurrying by in a sort of frenzied haste that made Professor Doepkin start and give him a keen look. The pedestrian dashed past and disappeared round the corner, and the German recoiled with an exclamation of amazement, as though in recognition.