For twenty-four hours after the operation Schriftman sat outside Gretzel’s door and received five-minute reports on her condition. Then when he realized that she bade fair to tide over the first terrible shock, he returned to his lonely room and slept. He was exhausted as he had never before been, and when he woke up he was still exhausted. Something seemed to have gone from him. He made his morning hospital visit to everyone except Gretzel, but his mind was loose and vague. So a week passed, and they told him that while the maid was free from pain and was making a good recovery, she shrank from everyone who approached her. “Und she neffer asks for Santy—hein?” he questioned the nurse. The nurse lowered her eyes. “No,” she admitted gently. He waited another week with the success of his wonderful operation his only consolation. There was no doubt now but that in time Gretzel would really be as gross and rosy as any of the princesses he had pictured to her. For a long time yet he must watch that weak heart, to be sure, but with care and patience much might be done even with that. If only she would let him, he would make that his life work. He wanted to make her his legal daughter; he wanted to buy a little house in the country and take her there; he wanted to make her a real fairyland princess. “Und she neffer asks yet for Santy—hein?” “No,” answered the nurse. “So,” he murmured, turning away his head. He waited a moment. Then he asked: “You speak somedimes off me?” “Yes,” answered the nurse. He did not press her further, and so she was saved from telling him that at the mere mention of his name the maid shrank away in terror. Schriftman waited until Gretzel’s temperature was normal—until for the first time in her life she slept soundly through the night. He himself had been sleeping less than one hour in the twenty-four. His clothes hung pitifully loose about his once firm body. As Burrell said, he was proving the truth of his own epigram: his love was costing him much—too much. There came a day when Schriftman could stand it no longer; when he could fight himself no longer. He stole to the door of Gretzel’s room while she was at breakfast. The nurse had seen him coming and was running down the corridor as fast as she could run. She heard the maid’s shriek of terror and forced both hands over her ears. Schriftman clutched at his heart. He grew ten years older in a minute as he saw the girl shrink away. She did not cry out again, but she kept her head hidden beneath the bedclothes. “Kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Don’t do dot. See, I vill go! I vill go und neffer again vill I scare you!” She did not move. “Goot-pye, kleine mädchen!” He trembled· “Goot-pye, leedle brincess.”