"No!" she said very resolutely, looking up from his shoulder into his face, with her tearful eyes; "it is because I love you; and let me tell you, it was because I always feared to love you that I was so cross. I will be so different now. I never could bear again to pass you in the street without one look! And lest you should ever feel a doubt, I will kiss you, that you may say, 'She kissed me;' and Laurella kisses no man but her husband." She kissed him thrice, and, escaping from his arms: "And now good-night, amor mio, cara vita mia!" she said. "Lie down to sleep, and let your hand get well. Do not come with me; I am afraid of no man, save of you alone." And so she slipped out, and soon disappeared in the shadow of the wall. He remained standing by the window, gazing far out over the calm sea, while all the stars in heaven appeared to flit before his eyes. The next time the little curato sat in his confessional, he sat smiling to himself. Laurella had just risen from her knees after a very long confession. "Who would have thought it?" he said musingly--"that the Lord would so soon have taken pity upon that wayward little heart? And I had been reproaching myself for not having adjured more sternly that ill demon of perversity. Our eyes are but short-sighted to see the ways of Heaven! Well, may God bless her, I say, and let me live to go to sea with Laurella's eldest born, rowing me in his father's place! Ah! well, indeed! l'Arrabiata!" THE PHILOSOPHER'S PENDULUM BY RUDOLPH LINDAU THE PHILOSOPHER'S PENDULUM A TALE FROM GERMANY BY RUDOLPH LINDAU I. During many long years Hermann Fabricius had lost sight of his friend Henry Warren, and had forgotten him.