"Gretchen, Gretchen!"

She stopped. "What is it?" keenly. "There was pain in your voice."

"The thought of how I love you hurts me. There is nothing else, nothing,
neither riches nor crowns, nothing but you, Gretchen. How long ago was
it I met you first?"

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks? Is it not years? Have I not always known and loved you?"

"And I! What an empty heart and head were mine till that wonderful day!
You were tired and dusty and footsore; you had walked some twenty odd
miles; yet you helped me with the geese. There were almost tears in your
eyes, but I knew that your heart was a man's when you smiled at me."
She stopped again and turned him round to her. "And you love me like
this?"

"Whatever betide, _Lieberherz_, whatever befall." And he embraced her
with a fierce tenderness, and so strong was he in the moment that
Gretchen gave a cry. He kissed her, not on the lips, but on the fine
white forehead, reverently.

They proceeded, Gretchen subdued and the vintner silent, until they came
to the end of their journey at number forty in the Krumerweg. It was a
house of hanging gables, almost as old as the town itself, solid and
grim and taciturn. There are some houses which talk like gossips, noisy,
obtrusive and provocative. Number forty was like an old warrior, gone to