d return
them, receiving her own in exchange, we left the house.

It was quite moonlight now; the last faint streak of twilight had
disappeared. The way that we must traverse to reach the town stretched
before us, long, straight, and flat.

"Where is your shawl?" he asked, suddenly.

"I left it; it was wet through."

Before I knew what he was doing, he had stripped off his heavy overcoat,
and I felt its warmth and thickness about my shoulders.

"Oh, don't!" I cried, in great distress, as I strove to remove it again,
and looked imploringly into his face.

"Don't do that. You will get cold; you will--"

"Get cold!" he laughed, as if much amused, as he drew the coat around me
and fastened it, making no more ado of my resisting hands than if they
had been bits of straw.

"So!" said he, pushing one of my arms through the sleeve. "Now," as he
still held it fastened together, and looked half laughingly at me, "do
you intend to keep it on or not?"

"I suppose I must."

"I call that gratitude. Take my arm--so. You are weak yet."

We walked on in silence for some time. I was happy; for the first time
since the night I had heard "Lohengrin" I was happy and at rest. True,
no forgiveness had been asked or extended; but he had ceased to behave
as if I were not forgiven.

"Am I not going too fast?" he inquired.

"N--no."

"Yes, I am, I see. We will moderate the pace a little."

We walked more slowly. Physically I was inexpressibly weary. The
reaction after my drenching had set in; I felt a languor which amounted
to pain, and an aching and weakness in every limb. I tried to regret the
event, but could not; tried to wish it were not such a long walk to
Elberthal, and found myself perversely regretting that it was such a
short one.

At length the lights of the town came in sight. I heaved a deep sigh.
Soon it would be over--"the glory and the dream."

"I think we are exactly on the way to your house, _nicht wahr_?" said
he.

"Yes; and to yours since we are opposite neighbors."

"Yes."

"You are not as lonely as I am, though; you have companions."

"I--oh--Friedhelm; yes."

"And--your little boy."

"Sigmund also," was all he said.

But "_auch_ Sigmund" may express much more in German than in English. It
did so then.

"And you?" he added.

"I am alone," said I.

I did not mean to be foolishly sentimental. The sigh that followed my
words was involuntary.

"So you are. But I suppose you like it?"

"L