t she was being
lifted off the bank into the river.

"Dearest girl! can you see? No; nothing, of course, as yet. Step
down. There is a boat here. There are two boats. Lean upon me, and we
can walk over. There. Do not mind treading softly. They cannot hear
because of the rain. We shall be out of it in a minute. I am sorry
you should be wet, but yet it is better for us."

She hardly understood him, but yet she did as he told her, and in a
few minutes she was standing on the other bank of the river, in the
Ruden Platz. Here Linda perceived that there was a man awaiting them,
to whom Ludovic gave certain orders about the boats. Then Ludovic
took her by the hand and ran with her across the Platz, till they
stood beneath the archway of the brewery warehouse where she had so
often watched him as he went in and out. "Here we are safe," he said,
stooping down and kissing her, and brushing away the drops of rain
from the edges of her hair. Oh, what safety! To be there, in the
middle of the night, with him, and not know whither she was to go,
where she was to lie, whether she would ever again know that feeling
of security which had been given to her throughout her whole life by
her aunt's presence and the walls of her own house. Safe! Was ever
peril equal to hers? "Linda, say that you love me. Say that you are
my own."

"I do love you," she said; "otherwise how should I be here?"

"And you had promised to marry that man!"

"I should never have married him. I should have died."

"Dearest Linda! But come; you must not stand here." Then he took her
up, up the warehouse stairs into a gloomy chamber, from which there
was a window looking on to the Ruden Platz, and there, with many
caresses, he explained to her his plans. The caresses she endeavoured
to avoid, and, when she could not avoid them, to moderate. "Would he
remember," she asked, "just for the present, all that she had gone
through, and spare her for a while, because she was so weak?" She
made her little appeal with swimming eyes and low voice, looking into
his face, holding his great hand the while between her own. He swore
that she was his queen, and should have her way in everything. But
would she not give him one kiss? He reminded her that she had never
kissed him. She did as he asked her, just touching his lips with
hers, and then she stood by him, leaning on him, while he explained
to her something of his plans. He kept close to the window, as it was
necessary th