"I can find my way," the landlady murmured, and turned toward the beds in the dusk, but stopped as she heard the door adjoining open and the young lady utter a slight scream. "Good Heavens!" thought she, "people of quality are almost worse off than we are"--for the gentleman who had returned had begun at once to speak in a tone not exactly loud, but evidently excited. What could be the trouble between the two young people? thought she, slipping on tiptoe to the door. But she could not understand anything of all the gentleman was saying, nor the few words which the lady interjected; and then it seemed to the landlady as if it was not the clear voice of the gentleman and as if the two were not speaking German. She peeped through the crack and saw, to her astonishment and terror, a wild strange man in the room with the young lady, from whose shoulders a brown coat fell to the floor as she looked in; but he did not pick it up, though continuing to gesticulate and to speak more rapidly and loudly in his unintelligible gibberish like a crazy man, as the terrified landlady thought. "I will not go back again!" cried Antonio, "after having run half the way like a dog behind his mistress, whom a robber has kidnapped, and ridden the other half cramped up in straw in a wagon, like an animal taken to market by the butcher. I don't intend to be a dog, worse than a beast, any longer, and I will no longer endure it. I now know everything, everything, everything!--How he has betrayed you, the infamous coward, to run after another, and again from her to you, and has lain before your door whining for favor, while those inside have been making a match for him. His wench and that infernal Giraldi, whom I intend to throttle whenever and wherever I meet him, as truly as my name is Antonio Michele! I know everything, everything, everything--and that you will yield your person to him tonight, as you have already yielded your soul to him!" The desperate man could not understand the half contemptuous, half melancholy smile which played about the proud lips of the beautiful girl. "Don't laugh, or I'll kill you!" And then as she arose--not from fear, but only to ward off the furious man---- "Pardon, oh! pardon me--I kill you, you--you, who are everything to me, the light and joy of my life, for whom I would let myself be torn in pieces, limb by limb! I will give every drop of my heart's blood if you will only let me kiss the hem of your garment--kiss the ground upon which you tread! How often, how often, have I done it without your knowing it--in your studio--the place where your beautiful feet have rested, the implements which your hand has touched! And I demand so little! I am willing to wait--for years--as I have already waited for years; I shall not grow tired of serving you, of worshiping you as the Holy Madonna, till the day comes when you will hear my prayers." He dropped to his knees where he stood, lifting his wild eyes and twitching hands to her.