"Don't go away, to-day, at any rate. Think it over," she added, weeping bitterly again.

  He felt that he ought to comfort her.

  She came towards him, and throwing her arms round him, she clung to him in her despair and eagerness. "Don't go, don't go!" She felt that he was yielding. "Never," she whispered, "since I have been a widow have I given myself to any one but you; and so judge for yourself." She laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed bitterly.

  "It has come upon me so suddenly," he said; "I cannot - "

  "Then take time," she interrupted in a whisper, and took a hasty kiss. "Oh, Rafael!" She twined her arms round him: her touch thrilled through him -

  Some one knocked at the door: they started away from each other. It was the man who had come for the luggage. Rafael flushed crimson. "I shall not go till to-morrow," he said.

  When the man had left the room Angelika sprang towards Rafael. She thanked and kissed him. Oh, how she beamed with delight and exultation! She was like a girl of twenty, or rather like a young man, for there was something masculine in her manner as she left him.

  But the light and fire were no sooner withdrawn than his spirits fell. A little later he lay at full length on the sofa, as though in a grave. He felt as though he could never get up from it again. What was his life now? For there is a dream in every life which is its soul, and when the dream is gone the life appears a corpse.

  This, then, was the fulfilment of his forebodings. Hither the ravens had followed the wild beast which dwelt in him. It would on longer play and amuse him, but strike its claws into him in earnest, overthrow him, and lap his fresh-spilt blood.

  But it was none the less certain that if he left her she would be ruined, she and her child. Then no one would consider him as an honourable man, least of all himself.

  During his last sojourn in France, when he could not settle down to a great work which was constantly dawning before him, he had thought to himself - You have taken life too lightly. Nothing great ever comes to him who does so.

  Now, perhaps, when he did his duty here; took upon himself the burden of his fault towards her, himself, and others - and bore it like a man; then perhaps he would be able to utilise all his powers. That was what his mother had done, and she had succeeded.

  But with the thought of his mother came the thought of Helene, of his dream. It was flying from him like a bird of passage from the autumn. He lay there and felt as though he could never get up again.

  From amid the turmoil of the last summer there came to his recollection two individuals, in whom he reposed entire confidence: a young man and his wife. He went to see them the same evening and laid the facts honestly before them, for now, at all events, he was honest. The conclusive proof of being so is to be able to tell everything about oneself as he did now.

  They heard him with dismay, but their advice was remarkable. He ought to wait and see if she were enceinte.

  This aroused his spirit of contradiction. There was no doubt about it, for she was perfectly truthful. But she might be mistaken; she ought to make quite sure. This suggestion, too, shocked him; but he agreed that she should come and talk things over with them. They knew her.

  She came the next day. They said to her, what they could not very well say to Rafael, that she would ruin him. The wife especially did not spare her. A highly gifted young man like Rafael Kaas, with such excellent prospects in every way, must not, when little more than twenty, burden himself with a middle-aged wife and a number of children. He was far from rich, he had told her so himself; his life would be that of a beast of burden, and that too, before he had learned to bear the yoke. If he had to work, to feed so many people, he might strain himself to the uttermost, he would still remain mediocre. They would both suffer under this, be disappointed and discontented.