"Sit down by me, Johannes," she said. "I, too, am glad to see your face once more. You look very well; you have grown a little stouter, but it is becoming; teaching seems to suit you better than the dramatic business. Oh, my dear friend, this is like the day of judgment, when everything is to be brought together. True, only the shadow of the very best of all returns!" She glanced at the picture of Joachimchen on the table, and her eyes grew grave. "I can not yet recover from my joyful surprise," I said, as I took my seat at the window opposite to her. "You here! And what tempted you to this out-of-the-way corner? And whence do you come?" She smiled again. "_You_ tempted me, my friend--_you_, and no one else. I was very ill and thought I should not recover. So, before my death, I wanted to again clasp the hand of my last friend, and thank him for all the love and fidelity he has shown me. Believe me, I know everything that has happened to you during our separation--it is not much--Uncle Joachim constantly inquired about you and wrote me all he learned. He alone, of all my acquaintances, knew where I was to be found." "And did not answer one single word, the envious man, though I wrote to him three times to obtain news of you." "He could not. I had strictly forbidden it. I wanted to be dead to every one, and always hoped that God would be merciful and speedily summon me from the world. But He had different plans for me, and I will not murmur against His will. Where did I hide myself? Why, in a very remote corner of the Uckermark, on the estate of a nobleman who had advertised for a companion for his invalid wife and a governess for his little daughter. How I fared in that house, and learned to practice every deed of charity, I will tell you some other time or not at all. I can only repeat the old words: 'With the sick I became well, with the poor rich, with the dying I learned to live.' And all this exactly in my own way, with people whom I tenderly loved. You know the professional neighborly love a deaconess practices would be contrary to my nature, like a public display of piety and love for God. But when the gentle sufferer died, and a few weeks after her little daughter followed her, I could no longer remain in the house; for the sorrowing widower, otherwise a thoroughly admirable man, offered me his heart and hand, and, when I told him that I was not free, proposed to make every effort to have my missing husband declared dead and then marry me. Just at that time I received a letter from our Liborius, the gardener, informing me that Uncle Joachim was very ill and wished to see me. This instantly afforded me an escape from my painful position. For, though I could be nothing to the worthy man, I pitied his desolation and his hopeless love. Willing or not, he was now obliged to let me go at once." "Poor woman!" I said. "How you must have suffered in returning to the old scenes which had so many hated associations."