opened the drawer of her writing-desk and drew forth her
diary--"I, too, although I perhaps knew less of you than you of me--I,
too, have often had you with me in my thoughts--and since you have
destroyed again the image that you took from me without my knowledge,
ought not I also to destroy those pages in which you are spoken of--"

She made a gesture as if she were about to tear out the pages. In an
instant he had sprung to her side and had seized firm hold of her hand.

"Julie!" he cried, as if beside himself; "is it true--is it possible?
Your thoughts were with me?--and in these pages--I beseech you, let me
have but one look--only let me see one line, so that I shall not think
that you have invented all this in order to give me comfort, and to
relieve me from my shame--"

"Shame!" she whispered. "But cannot you see that in spite of my
thirty-one years I am trembling like a child detected in some
naughtiness? Must I really read aloud to you out of this book what
you--what you might long ago have guessed from my silence--if you had
not been trembling so yourself?"

The last words died away on her lips. The book slipped from her hands
and fell on the carpet, where it lay without his bending to pick it up.

A kind of stupor had come over him. He seized both her hands and
clasped them so tightly that it pained her; but the pain did her good.
His face was so near hers that she could see every muscle in it quiver;
his eyes gleamed with a wild fire, like the gaze of a somnambulist. And
yet she had no horror of him. She would gladly have stood so forever,
and have felt her hands in his, and have encountered the power of his
fixed gaze.

It was only when she felt that her eyes were on the point of
overflowing, and feared that he might misunderstand it, that she said
softly, smilingly shaking her head: "Don't you believe me even yet?"

Then at last he released her hands, threw his arms about her yielding
figure, and pressed her wildly to his breast.

A noise was heard in the front room; the old servant apparently wished
to remind the visitor, by the rattling of plates and knives and forks,
that dinner-time was something that must be respected.

As if startled out of a dream, Jansen suddenly tore himself from
Julie's arms. "Unhappy wretch that I am!" cried he, hoarsely, covering
his face with his hands. "Oh, God! Where have I let myself be carried?"

"You have only followed where our hearts had already led!" said Jul