"I was so sure of welcome! And yet as soon as I was fit to travel I came
here to see you. I intended to send in my card to-morrow. But I could
not help haunting your window to-night, and when I had the good fortune
to see you sitting there--with the moon shining on your beautiful
face--"

"My face is no longer beautiful, dear Franz--"

"You are a thousand times more beautiful than ever--"

Something else vibrated along those steel nerves, but she said briskly:
"Standing so long must have tired you. Come in and rest. It is late; but
if there are still conventions in this crashing world I have forgotten
them."

Her rooms were always prepared for a sudden visit of the police. If a
firing squad were her fate it would not have been invited through the
usual channels. Even the arms to be worn on the morrow were in the
cellars and attics of citizens so respectable as almost to be nameless.

He followed her through the common entrance of the apartment house into
her _Saal_. It was a large comfortable room with many deep chairs, and
on the gray walls were a few portraits of her scowling ancestors,
contributed long since by her mother. A tall porcelain stove glowed
softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked
the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a
curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of
her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her
suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing