The young man is Doctor Braun; the house before which he patrols, Leporello-fashion, is the famous boarding-school of Miss Bear; and the young lady for whom he is waiting is his betrothed Sophie, the only child of the privy councillor and professor, Doctor Roban, a physician of great renown in Grunwald, and a distinguished member of the university. "What a vague idea of time even the cleverest of women have!" murmured Franz, pulling out his watch and looking at it by the faint light of a badly-burning cigar; "it is a psychological fact which I must treat of one of these days in a monograph." He throws away the short end of his cigar, which threatened to singe his moustache, and looks up once more at the lighted window. "Heaven be thanked, they are getting ready! Dark shadows are flitting to and fro near the curtains! Now for the cloak, and the bonnet--a kiss to say good-by then a little bit of a chat of ten minutes about the next place of meeting--then another farewell kiss. The window is looking darker; there is a light in the hall; now a final discussion on the steps--_enfin_!" "Do you come at last, _ma mignonne_? said Doctor Braun, greeting the slight maidenly form which had come out of the house, and now hastened with light steps across the little garden which divided the house from the street, to the iron gate. "Poor Franz! You have not been waiting for me," answers the girl, affectionately leaning on the arm of her betrothed. "Oh, not at all! Nothing to speak of! Half an hour or so!" "I really did not know it was so late. The time passed so quickly, although the whole party consisted only of two persons. Can you guess who they were?" "Yourself, probably, for one." "Very well--and the other?" "Helen Grenwitz." "Exactly! She sends you her best regards. Only think, she will probably stay with the Great Bear, although her friends are coming to town for the winter, If they have not already come to-day. That will be a fine subject for gossip. Poor Helen! I pity her with all my heart!" "Why?" "How can you ask? Is it not bad enough that the whole town will ask why a girl of sixteen--no, sixteen and a half--should be sent back to school when she has hardly been four weeks at home? And as long as the Grenwitz family was not living in town, there might have been some explanation; but now--oh, I think it is abominable. People must think of her--I don't know what; and it is not so much to be wondered at if they connect Helen in some way or other with the duel fought by her cousin and your amiable friend, Stein." "And what says Miss Helen?" "Nothing! You know how she is. She never speaks of family matters; at most she occasionally mentions her father, whom she seems to love most tenderly. She is quiet and serious; but not exactly sad." "I believe she is much too proud ever to be really sad." "How so?"