awoke with tear-streaming eyes and utterly exhausted.

Before the rehearsal Wladek came to see her. For the first time she
threw herself into his arms of her own accord.

"They all know!" she whispered, hiding her face upon his breast.

Wladek immediately surmised what she meant and answered: "Well, what
of it? Is it a crime?"

He sat down in an ill humor, began to rub his knee and tossed about
angrily in his chair.

Janina noticed his mood and, forgetting about herself, inquired:
"What is the matter with you? Are you ill?"

"There is nothing the matter with me, only I owe someone a few
rubles and am unable to pay them back. I can't ask my mother for the
money, for she is sick again and it would only finish her! Cabinski
will not give it to me either, and I am at my wit's end!"

He was, of course, lying, for he had been playing cards the whole
night long and had lost all he had. Janina remembered the help she
had received from Glogowski, so without hesitation she took off her
gold watch and chain and laid it before Wladek.

"I have no money. Take this and pawn it and pay your debt and what
you have left over bring me back, for I also have nothing," she said
heartily.

"No, I shall not take it! What do you want to do that for? I really
don't need it. . . . My dear child! . . ." remonstrated Wladek in
his first impulse of honesty.

"Please take it. . . . If you love me you will take it."

Wladek demurred a little while yet, but the thought struck him that
with the money he might play again to win back what he had lost.

"No! What would that look like!" he whispered, his resistance
growing ever weaker.

"Go right away and on your way back stop in for me and we shall have
breakfast together," urged Janina.

Wladek kissed her, as though he were embarrassed, muttered something
about gratitude, but finally took the watch and went to pawn it.

He returned quickly with thirty rubles. He immediately borrowed
twenty from Janina and wanted even to give her a receipt for them,
but she became so angry that he had to apologize to her. Then they
went out to breakfast.

Thenceforward they lived together. At the theater everyone knew
about their relation, but it was such a usual thing, that no one
paid attention to it. Only Sowinska would sometimes taunt Janina on
the score and slight her and, whereas not so long ago she had done
nothing but praise Wladek, she now told the vilest sort of tales
about him. She delighte