world--what marvel was it that the two unhappy combatants bled from painful wounds--and must bleed to death if they are not separated in time, the world thinks and says in such cases. I am well aware of it, but I did not think so. I said to myself: 'These two cannot forget or lose each other, even if they should place a world between them, and next to themselves the person would suffer most who might be mad enough to aid this separation.' I said this also to the young wife, who could not or would not conceal her misery from me. I spoke to her--as I thought my duty required me to do--with earnest entreaty, and I must confess that in so speaking I drowned, not the voice of my conviction, but of my own heart, which during this strange scene seemed as if it would burst my laboring breast. Now, for the first time, I learned that before the right man came I had been dearer to the beautiful girl than I had ever ventured to hope or suspect--learned it in broken words and hints which rose from her glowing, passionate heart like sparks from a blazing fire. How can I deny that I was touched by this fire, that it became inexpressibly difficult for me to withstand it? Yes, my friend, I struggled like the patriarch of old on that wondrous night, and from my heaving breast, like his, the magic words were gasped forth, 'I will not let thee go, except Thou bless me.' "And was it no blessing that some trace of the repose I had won by so fierce a conflict seemed to calm the soul of the despairing young wife, that she--which in such a situation is everything--found time to regain her self-control, to remember what she had once possessed, to ask herself whether she might not possess it again if she desired. I can still see the look with which she extended her hand as she bade me farewell, the earnest, expressive glance in which a gleam of hope still sparkled. I can still hear her sweet voice utter the words which were the richest reward to me for all I had done and suffered, the words: 'I thank you, my friend.'" "And I thank you," said Gotthold, seizing the hand of the deeply-agitated man, and pressing it warmly, "thank you with all my heart, for you have acted according to your sincere conviction, and what can a man do more? But you did not save my poor mother from dying of a broken heart." Wollnow looked gloomily at the floor. Gotthold, smiling sadly, continued: "To be sure, it is better to die so, to die young, than to live on with a broken heart, to the torment instead of the joy of one's self and others, as was the fate of my poor father. And he cannot have become reconciled to my mother's shade. Else why, when he pushed me from him in anger, did his pale lips murmur: 'You are just like your mother'? No, no, my friend, I honor your wisdom, but I think one must be born wise--it is not to be learned." "At least in one lesson," said Wollnow, with grave kindness, "and this has lasted long enough--too long, when I consider the condition of the pupil."