The 25th of May, 1866, was no doubt to many a quite indifferent date,
but to two persons it was the saddest day of their lives. Charles
Randall that day left Bonn, Germany, to catch the steamer home to
America, and Ida Werner was left with a mountain of grief on her
gentle bosom, which must be melted away drop by drop, in tears, before
she could breathe freely again.

A year before, Randall, hunting for apartments, his last term at the
university just begun, had seen the announcement, "_Zimmer zu
vermiethen_," in the hall below the flat where the Werners lived. Ida
answered his ring, for her father was still at his government office,
and her mother had gone out to the market to buy the supper. She would
much rather her mother had been at home to show the gentleman the
rooms; but knowing that they could not afford to lose a chance to
rent them, she plucked up courage, and, candle in hand, showed him
through the suite. When he came next day with his baggage he learned
for the first time what manner of apartments he had engaged; for
although he had protracted the investigation the previous evening to
the furthest corner, and had been most exacting as to explanations, he
had really rented the rooms entirely on account of a certain light in
which a set of Madonna features, in auburn hair, had shown at the
first opening of the door.

A year had passed since this, and a week ago a letter from home had
stated that his father, indignant at his unexplained stay six months
beyond the end of his course, had sent him one last remittance, barely
sufficient for a steamer ticket, with the intimation that if he did
not return on a set day he must thenceforth attend to his own
exchequer. The 25th was the last day on which he could leave Bonn to
catch the requisite steamer. Had it been in November, nature at least
would have sympathized; it was cruel that their autumn time of
separation should fall in the spring, when the sky is full of
bounteous promise and the earth of blissful trust.

Love is so improvident that a parting a year away is no more feared
than death, and a month's end seems dim and distant. But a week--a
week only--that even to love is short, and the beginning of the end.
The chilling mist that rose from the gulf of separation so near
before them, overshadowed all the brief remnant of their path. They
were constantly together. But a silence had come upon them. Never had
words seemed idler, they had so much to say.