she had exhausted
herself in a thousand fond extravagances.

During the next few days Wilhelm noticed something odd in Pilar's
manner which he failed to understand. She seemed strangely absent and
thoughtful, by turns unnaturally silent and feverishly talkative, would
sit for hours beside him glancing mysteriously at him from time to
time, as if she knew something very wonderful, and were debating in her
own mind whether to tell it or keep it to herself. She blushed if he
looked at her inquiringly, and rushed away and locked herself into her
boudoir.

He watched these peculiar proceedings patiently for about a week, and
then asked one day, not without a secret misgiving:

"Pilar, what is the matter with you lately?"

Probably she had only waited for this. She cast herself upon his
breast, drew his head down, and whispered something in his ear. He
straightened himself up with a jerk.

"Are you certain?" he asked, with an unsteady voice.

"Almost, I think; yes, Wilhelm, it must be so," she stammered, hiding
her face on his shoulder.

It was well she did not look at him at that moment. Unskilled as he was
in the art of dissembling, his face expressed no pleasure at all, but
only painful surprise. For weeks, but more especially since his gloomy
broodings on New-Year's night, the anxious thought lay heavy on him,
"What if our connection should have results?" The situation would then
become so complicated that he saw no prospect of ever putting it
straight again. The idea had only hitherto been an indefinite cause of
anxiety--now it resolved itself into a fact which appalled him. At the
same time he could not but see how happy Pilar was at the prospect, and
it seemed to him unkind, even brutal, to let her have an inkling of
what he felt at her news. He kissed her in silence, and pressed her
hand long and warmly.

"You have not said yet that you are glad," she said, and raised her
eyes to his in fond reproach.

"Must one put everything into words?" he returned, with an uneasy smile.

"It is true," she answered; "I ought to be accustomed to your German
ways by this time. But your reserve is quite uncanny to us Southerners.
You are silent where our hearts simply overflow with words quite of
themselves. You are content to think where we shout for joy."

With these words Pilar depicted her own state. She felt in truth that
she could shout for joy, and the happy words flowed of themselves from
her lips. Now at last t