"Yes," I answered, and walked along the bank of the river. There was not time to return to my house, and I had no inclination to stroll about the streets. Just beyond the limits of the village there was a little garden with a covered bowling alley and tables for beer drinkers. I entered it. A few middle-aged men were playing ninepins. The balls rolled noisily, and from time to time I caught expressions of applause. A pretty girl, with eyelids reddened by crying, brought me a glass of beer. I looked her in the face. She turned hastily away and disappeared. "Yes, yes," said a fat and ruddy-cheeked man who was sitting near me. "Our little Nancy is in great trouble to-day. Her lover is gone with the conscripts." I looked after her. She had retired to a corner and buried her face in her hands. One after another the tears trickled through her fingers. Some one called for beer. She brought it, and went back to her place. Her grief reacted upon me. I began to think of the interview before me; but I thought of it with anxiety, not with joy. I did not go light-hearted to the rendezvous. No joyful exchange of mutual love was before me; I had a promise to redeem, a hard duty to perform. "There is no jesting possible with her"--this expression of Gagin's pierced my soul like an arrow. And was not this the very happiness for which I had longed four days ago, in the little boat which the waves bore onward? Now it seemed to be possible--but I wavered, I thrust it from me; I must put it away from me. The very unexpectedness of it confused me. Assja herself, with her impetuosity, her past history, her education--this charming but singular being--let me confess it--inspired me with fear. For a long time I gave myself up to these conflicting feelings. The deferred tryst was at hand. "I cannot marry her," I decided at last, "and she shall not know that I love her." I rose, and after I had pressed a thaler in poor Nancy's hand (for which she did not even thank me) I went straight to Frau Luise's house. Already the shadow of dusk was in the air, and above the darkening streets a narrow streak, the reflection of the sunset, reddened in the sky. I knocked lightly at the door. It was opened instantly. I stepped across the threshold and found myself suddenly in darkness. "This way!" whispered an old woman's voice. "Some one is waiting for you." I advanced a couple of steps, stumbling. A skinny hand clutched mine. "Is it you, Frau Luise?" I asked. "Yes," the same voice answered. "Yes, it is I, my handsome young gentleman." The old woman led me up one steep staircase and stopped at the bottom of a second. By the dull light which came in through a little window I recognized the wrinkled visage of the burgomaster's widow. A hateful, sly smile distorted her shrunken lips and half closed the little bleared eyes. She pointed out a small door to me. I opened it with a hand that trembled, and shut it again behind me. * * * * *