der word to her, only to lapse into silence
again the next moment.

When at last they arrived at the gate before her house, she stood still
and drew the door-key from her pocket.

"We are really here already!" she said. "What a pity! I could walk for
hours. It seems to me as if time stood still when I am hanging on your
arm. But I must relieve my old Erich, who is sitting up until I come.
Good-night, dearest!"

"Here?" he asked, painfully surprised--"here, in the cold street? It is
warm in your rooms."

"And for that very reason," she said, softly, "we should find it so
much the harder to part."

"Julie!" he cried, passionately clasping her to his breast, "_must_ we
part? Can you send me away, when we have not been able to say a
confidential word to one another all this evening? If you but knew how
I felt--"

She gently withdrew from his embrace. "Dearest," she whispered, "I know
only too well. Do you suppose it costs me no struggle to have more
sense than you, you wild man? To still make myself out a girl without a
hearty while all the while I can feel the poor disobedient thing
beating only too wildly? Oh, my darling, if you and I were only alone
in the world--"

"Who is there besides ourselves who can separate us from one another?"
he cried, hotly.

She laid her soft hand entreatingly upon his mouth. There were some
people passing who stopped to listen to his loud voice. "Be quiet,
dearest!" she whispered. "Be good, be gentle, be patient for just a
little while longer; and think, too, of my own feeling. Have you
forgotten that I have determined to be a good mother to our little
Frances? I always want to be able to look her in the eyes, and on our
marriage-day, too, when I wear the bridal-wreath that I have honorably
deserved. The happiness of belonging to you is so great that it may
well be worth a time of probation. And now good-night, until to-morrow,
and don't be angry with me. Some time you will thank me for having
to-day made myself out stronger--than I really am."

With these words she threw her arms tightly round his neck, and gave
him a long and loving kiss. Then she hastily escaped, opened the gate,
and vanished down the dark garden-walk that led to the house-door. He
waited to see the light appear in her window; he could not feel
reconciled to parting from her in this way. But she knew that it would
only be the harder for him to tear himself away if he should see a
light in her window. With thr