"Mr. von Prell," she said very condescendingly, "do you realize that by the same time to-morrow you will probably have been dismissed?" He was touched at last. He frowned and bit the ends of his moustache; but then he said: "What gives me some satisfaction in the fact is that my lady seems to take no slight interest in the matter." Now she became angry in earnest. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. von Prell," she cried. "I wear myself out and take great risks trying to help you, and you show your gratitude by making silly remarks all the time." "Courage, Tommy," he said, taking the dog in his arms. "First they flay us, then they kick us out. Our one comfort is, we are innocent sufferers. Poor, poor Tommy." "Don't try to whitewash yourself," Lilly reprimanded. "Miss von Schwertfeger discovered everything--your relations--you understand--your nightly trips to my balcony and through my room--everything. Do you think I take pleasure in having to treat you like a criminal when I've always thought so much of you? Don't you think I'd much rather be proud of you, than stand here and see you driven away like a stray dog? Or can you say anything in justification of yourself? Can you? Tell me." She talked herself into such warmth that she forgot the unseemliness of her being there with him. She was now that which she wanted to be--the benevolent chatelaine, who turns everything to good account; and her breast swelled with the consciousness of her lofty ethical undertaking. They had stepped from under the dark arches of the linden walk. A few sharply defined streaks of red still coloured the west, and cast a deep glow over his narrow, freckled face. He looked completely crushed and penitent, and Lilly regretted having dealt with him so harshly. "I realise," he began after a short pause, his voice quivering as with suppressed excitement, "I realise I must not let so grave a charge go without justifying myself. And I can justify myself, I most undoubtedly can. But in doing so, I am compelled to disclose a secret, which--I really do not know if I ought to initiate you into the horrible mysteries that threaten to ruin my life." "What are they?" queried Lilly, in terrified curiosity. "Well, then, from my boyhood up I have been pursued by an awful fate, which comes upon me when I am utterly defenceless and imposes upon me responsibility for misdeeds of which I am absolutely innocent, and places me in breakneck situations, which--I will be outspoken--I am--well, I am a somnambulist." The merry little devils frolicked between his silvery lids, and Lilly, in spite of herself, burst out laughing. He joined in with his dear, mute tehee, which shook him like a storm; and they stood there laughing till they wearied. Lilly no longer thought of her chatelaine's dignity, or her ethical mission. As if by mutual agreement they turned into the deserted depths of the park, which bordered on a bosky beech grove with neither fence nor hedge between.