ld be doubled if it might be shared with the world,
but nevertheless a secret which gave joy in mere solitary
contemplation.

_Hilda_ was a subject which forced itself with increasing potency
upon his mind. After the first shock of her sudden coming had passed,
he had been touched by her turning to him in her loneliness. That
Sydney's withdrawal from him lay at Hilda's charge he could not fail to
see, and he blamed himself for the occasional repulsion against his
sister-in-law with which the situation filled him. She was so sweet, so
childlike, so full of trust in him, so regretful for her mistakes of
the past, so reticent as to Maximilian's ill-behavior. Her whole
conduct won his respect and confidence, even while he felt himself
subtly encompassed by the seine of her entire reliance upon the keeping
of his oath. That she expected him to marry her he did not formally
concede to himself, but he was quite sure that she did not expect him
to marry any one else.

His errands done,--a commission for Mrs. Morgan and some business for
the firm,--he betook himself to the hotel and asked for the register.
He was running over the names when he heard some one behind him saying,
in German,--

"It _is_ my von Rittenheim! It is my dear Friedrich!" and "dear
Friedrich" and a somewhat stout young man a few years younger than he
flung themselves into each other's arms, and kissed both cheeks after
the manner of their race, while the clerk turned to his safe to conceal
the grin that inwreathed his countenance.

"Von Sternburg! What in the world brought you here?"

"Baedeker. This scenery is among the things a globe-trotter has to
see."

"Shall you stay long?"

"I go to Florida day after to-morrow. Come on to the veranda and tell
me about yourself."

"If I can stop asking questions long enough!"

It was while they were talking and smoking in the sunshine with the
glorious western range spread before them, that von Sternburg said,--

"And poor old Max is dead."

He knocked the ash from his cigar with his little finger, and glanced
at Friedrich, who was non-committal.

"Yes," was all he said.

"I suppose they've never found any trace of the she-devil, have they?"

Friedrich sat up with a jerk and stared at von Sternburg.

"She-devil? What she-devil?"

"What she-devil? Why, the Baroness, of course. Max's wife."

"No trace of Hilda? She-devil? What are you talking about?"

"Do you mean to say that you don't know about