"It's painful to me to talk about it," she continued, with her handkerchief pressed against her eyes. "I still fed it so much. I hope you will be so kind as never again to refer to it." "Never again" had slipped from her. It sounded as if she took for granted that their acquaintance was to continue, and, overwhelmed with shame and confusion, she rose and turned her face aside. "Forgive me," he said, greatly concerned. "I had no idea ..." He stood up to go. A voice within her cried, "Stay, stay, stay!" But she was incapable of speaking, and felt as if turned to stone. Had he seen through her lies, divined who and what she was, and didn't wish to stay? She was conscious that her manner grew cold and haughty. She extended her finger-tips to him. "It was kind of you to come," she said. This was the moment to invite him to come again, but the words froze on her lips. His face had grown very pale, and he looked at her with great, inquiring, expectant eyes. "I hope we shall meet again," he said. "I hope so, too," she replied frigidly. He brushed her hand with his lips and was gone. The end--the end! And all her fault. Happiness had looked in upon her, had lightly laid its hand in blessing on her brow, and then flown away, leaving nothing but this pain, a pain more intolerable than any she had ever known. It clutched at her throat and tore her heart like a physical pain. During the night that followed she concocted a thousand plans by which she could contrive to find him out and meet him. As a scholar, he would probably be a constant visitor to the library. She would go there to read and study, in the hopes of coming across him. But, simpler still, why shouldn't she write to him? "I don't love you," she would write. "Why should I love you when I hardly know you? But I feel that I am destined to have some influence in your life, and so ..." Finally she rejected all her plans, disgusted with her own lack of dignity. No; Lilly Czepanek would not throw herself thus at any man's head. She became tormented once more with restlessness. In the daytime she haunted the Leipziger and Potsdamer Strassen, and other parts where metropolitan life is at its busiest. Of an evening, instead of roaming about in distant suburbs as of yore, she kept close to the neighbourhood of her own dwelling, walking up and down incessantly on the solitary banks of the canal with quick, businesslike strides. In spite of the economy on which she plumed herself, she left the light burning in the corner drawing-room, when she went out, for no apparent object. * * * * * It was on the fourth evening after their meeting that while she was pacing the further bank of the canal at about eight o'clock, when the stars hung like lamps in the sky, she happened to see among the trees the figure of a young man, who stood gazing up fixedly in the direction of her flat.