Eva looked up at him, confused and in doubt, but he suddenly dropped his jesting tone and continued very gravely, "You owe the interview I request both to me and to yourself. Pray add your entreaty, Hilda, to mine." Hilda smiled; she knew what Paul wished to say to Eva; he had briefly informed her on their way to the garden, and she eagerly seconded his request, and proposed that she herself should conduct Leo, Aline, and Herwarth through one wing of the castle, while Delmar showed Eva through the other, and that they should then all meet in the large hall. As she made this proposal she exchanged a glance of secret understanding with Paul. Eva still hesitated, but Paul would take no refusal. He offered her his arm and led her through the garden across the courtyard and up the grand staircase to the wing in which were Leo's apartments. On the way he pointed out to her everything of interest in the interior decoration and architecture of the ancient pile, calling especial attention to the massive antique furniture of some of the rooms. At any other time all this would have been especially interesting to Eva, but to-day she scarcely looked at all the rare antiquities, and even at last ventured to interrupt the flow of Delmar's antiquarian enthusiasm, saying, "You certainly had something else to say to me, Herr Delmar, when you asked me for this _tête-à-tête_." "You are right, Fräulein Eva," Paul replied, hastening along the dim corridor, at the end of which was Leo's studio. "I will no longer excite your curiosity, since we have reached the room which I think the most appropriate place in which to tell you what I have to say." He opened the door of a room which Eva entered. "Have you any idea of where we are?" Paul asked. The girl looked about her at the comfortable arrangements of the room, and her glance suddenly fell upon the easel, from which a face which she could not but recognize, regarded her with a gentle smile. The tears rushed to her eyes,--she knew well where she was, and with a burning blush she turned instantly to leave the room. "You are unkind. I have not deserved this," she said, in a tone of soft reproach, as she laid her hand upon the door-latch. Delmar, however, prevented her from opening the door; he took her hand and gently led her to the easel. "You must not, Fräulein Eva," he said earnestly, "at such a moment as this give any consideration to mere conventionalities. This is a turning-point in your existence. Look at this picture. You know who has painted it, and you know that Leo's hand never could have executed so true a presentment of yourself if your image did not fill his heart and soul,--if you were not present at all moments to his mental vision. Far more convincingly than in words must this picture tell you of his entire devotion to you, and it is for this that I have brought you here."