hank you," she replied, "I'm not tired. Tell me the commission you
wanted to give me."

"Commission? I have none; pardon me, dear friend, it was only a paltry
excuse; didn't you see through it at once: And besides, if I had
anything to be done in Berlin, I could not entrust it to you--for
you'll not go there yourself."

"Why do you attempt to dissuade me? Don't trouble yourself. I've made
up my mind; I think I know what I am doing."

Notwithstanding her refusal, she sat down, as if absorbed in thought,
in the chair he had placed for her, and diligently thrust the point of
her parasol into a hole in the floor, seeming for a moment to forget
everything around her.

"You've made up your mind?" he said with a very sorrowful face. "Of
course you're mistress of your own actions. But in that case I must
tell you that I have also made up my mind, not to give your letter to
Edwin."

"You've read it? Oh Reinhold!" A hasty, indignant glance from her eyes
met his. The next instant she lowered them to the ground in confusion.

"I have not read it," he said gravely. "Here it is; convince yourself
that that the seal is unbroken. But it is just the same as if I had."
She started up and moved toward the door, but suddenly paused halfway.

"Do not go," he pleaded. "There's time enough for that, when you've
listened to what I have to say. Tell me frankly: can you expect me,
when Edwin returns, to give him a letter in which his wife informs him,
that she has left him, because she can no longer live beneath his
roof?"

"Would I have said that? Would I have said it so? Now I ask you to open
the letter, Reinhold, that you may see what I have told him."

"I thank you for your confidence, dear friend, but I will not read the
letter which you will soon reproach yourself for having written.
Besides, I know very nearly what you've said, to palliate what you're
about to do to him--and yourself."

"Palliate? What I'm about to do is for his good; what it costs me no
one knows."

She had sunk down into the chair, with her forehead pressed against the
back; a shudder seemed to convulse her slight frame.

"Will you not bestow upon me the same confidence _he_ has given?" she
heard Franzelius ask after a pause. "True, his friendship is of an
older date, but when you became his wife, it seemed to me as if I had
loved you from childhood as my sister. Dear Leah, he has told me all he
told you. And do you think so old a friend cannot feel how m