"And now, my dearest, that you know that I will be true to you, waking and sleeping, and will be your wife, and will follow you to the ends of the world whenever you call me, do not call me yet, but leave me here with my father, whose support and comfort I am in this affliction, with my Aunt Valerie, who clings to me in the anguish of her heart. Ah! there is so much suffering which I only partly guess, but which does not therefore the less exist, and which I know will overflow so soon as I turn my back. It will perhaps come even now, and I cannot check it, but I shall have done my duty, you know, as Meta would say." The old sweet smile gleamed in the brown eyes which shone upon him. "We must just have patience and be sensible, and love each other very, very much, and then everything must come right, will it not, my darling?" "The man who knows himself beloved by you," whispered Reinhold, "can only fear one thing in this world--not to deserve your love." CHAPTER XIII. The two friends wandered up and down the brightly-illuminated platform of the station, waiting for the train. Uncle Ernst's carriage which had brought them, had come very quickly, the train was only just being made up, they had still nearly half an hour. "You will not stop in Sundin?" said Justus. "Only to-morrow," answered Reinhold; "I hope that will suffice to present myself before the President, and my immediate superiors, the Government surveyor, and the other gentlemen, and to receive my instructions." "I think the President has been here," said Justus, "for the last four days. He is to be Chairman of the Board for the new railway. They made him the most splendid offer, I am told." "So the papers say, but I do not believe it," answered Reinhold. "A man like the President could not agree to such a project, and moreover, if he were here, he would certainly have sent for me." "And the day after to-morrow you will be at your post with a north-easter whistling in your ears, and will swagger about in your pilot coat. What a lucky man you are!" Justus sighed; Reinhold looked at his friend, who, with downcast eyes walked dejectedly beside him, and then burst into a fit of laughter. "It is all very well to laugh," said Justus; "'laden with foreign treasures, he returns to his former home,' but how do I stand? A leafless stem." "Do not cry yourself down, Justus." "Ah! cry myself down!" said Justus; "do you mean to say that it is not enough to drive a poor fellow mad! I meant to have spared you this to-day, so as not to disturb your happiness and joy; but perhaps it is better for me to tell you now, instead of writing to you as I intended. You will be in his immediate neighbourhood, and will surely do me the kindness to go over some day and appeal to the old gentleman's conscience--though I don't believe he is old." "Alack!" said Reinhold, "blows the wind in that quarter?"