g, travel all night--to-morrow
I can be deep in my work. I will beg Angelica to excuse me to Schnetz.
She will be the first to understand that I am in no mood for
illuminations."

He had no sooner formed this resolution than he drew a long breath, and
hastened his steps toward the house which Schnetz had pointed out to
him. The gloaming had already come, and the first candles of the
illumination were glowing in a few of the windows; but those at
Angelica's house were dark. Up-stairs the door was opened for him by
the old landlady, of whom Angelica hired her lodgings. The Fraeulein was
at home, she said, pointing to the nearest door. He knocked with a
beating heart, of which he felt fairly ashamed. A woman's voice called
out "Come in." As he entered the dusky room, a slender figure rose from
the sofa, on which it had had been idly sitting as if waiting for him.
"Is it permitted me to come so late, my dear friend?" he said,
advancing hesitatingly. The figure tottered forward to meet him, and
now for the first time he recognized the features of the face--"Irene!
Good God!" he cried, and involuntarily stood still; but the next moment
he felt two arms encircling him, and burning lips pressed to his own,
stifling every word and plunging his senses into a whirl of delirious
joy. It was as if she wanted never to let him recover his speech again;
as if she feared he might vanish from her arms forever, the moment she
let him go. Even when she finally removed her lips from his and drew
him, bewildered and trembling, upon the sofa at her side, she went on
talking alone, as if any word that he might throw in would destroy the
spell that had at last led the loved one to her side again. He had
never seen her thus before; the last bar had fallen from her virgin
heart; and a yielding woman, laughing and weeping in the sweetness of
passion, lay upon his breast, with her arms around his neck.

Not a word was said about that which had kept him from her so long. It
was as if the war had called him from her side, and now at last he had
returned and all would be well again, and far more beautiful than it
could ever have been without his youthful heroism and his honorable
scars. He had to listen to many tender complaints and reproaches for
not having given her any news about himself in all this time. But the
moment he tried to say a word in his own defense, she closed his lips
with impassioned kisses.

"Be still!" she cried. "It is true you