But to-night when Ernestine had left him pondering a minute the question he said Liszt always left with him, she turned, eagerly it seemed, to lighter things. She played a little Nevin, played it with a lightness, gladsomeness, he had never felt in her touch before. He said Nevin helped him to see things, that he could see leaves moving on their branches, could see the shadows falling on the hillsides where the cattle were grazing, as he listened to Nevin. But it did not bring the pictures to-night. It opened up new fears. "Ernestine," he said abruptly, "come here." "Are you ever frightened, Ernestine?" he asked of her, still in that abrupt, strange manner. "Frightened--about what?" "Frightened about having to live all your life with me!" For a moment she did not answer. Then, her voice quiet with the quiet that would hold back anger: "Karl, do you think you are treating me very kindly to-night? Saying these strange things I cannot understand?" "But, Ernestine--look here! You're young--beautiful--love life. Doesn't it ever occur to you that you're not getting enough fun out of things?" "Karl,"--and there was a quivering in the voice now--"do you think I have been thinking lately about 'getting fun out of things'?" "No, but that's just it! You _ought_ to be thinking about it! Ernestine--_think_ of it! How are you going to go on forever loving a blind man?" For answer, she knelt down beside him, her arms about his neck, her cheek against his. "Yes--I know--in that way. But in the old way of the first days? I was so different then. How _can_ you love me now, the way you did then? What do I do now but sit in a chair and try to be patient? Look at a man like Parkman! That's life. Ernestine"--drawing her close, a sob in his voice--"liebchen,--_can_ you?" She longed to tell him then; it would mean so much to tell him now,--Karl was so troubled to-night. But the time was not ripe yet; she must not spoil it all. And so instead she talked to him of how real power comprehended more than activity, how depth of understanding, great things of the soul, were more masterful than those outer forces men called "life." Ernestine seldom failed in being convincing when she felt things as she now felt this. "You always have the right word," he said at last. "You can always get ahead of the little blue devils." "Oh, Karl," she murmured, very low, her heart too full to resist this--"some day I can show you better what I expect of life." "Of course," he mused, after a silence, "you have your work." "Yes," replied Ernestine, and something in her voice puzzled him, "I have my work."