him to be lying there.

Then she felt him take one of her hands and hold it tight, then the
other, so that she had to turn a little that way; he drew her gently,
but strongly and firmly towards him with eye and hand, till she was at
his side, her head fallen on his shoulder. She felt him stroke her
hair with one hand, but she dared not look up. Presently she broke
into passionate weeping at the thought of her shameful behaviour.

"Yes, you may cry," said he, "but I will laugh; what has happened to
us two is matter both for laughter and for tears."

His voice shook. And now he bent over her and whispered that the
farther away he went from her yesterday the nearer he seemed to be to
her. The feeling overmastered him so, that when he reached his little
shooting cabin, where he had a German officer with him this summer,
recruiting after the war, he left the guest to take care of himself,
and wandered farther up the mountain. He spent the night on the
heights, sometimes sitting, sometimes wandering about. He went home to
breakfast, but away again immediately. He was twenty-eight now, no
longer a boy, and he felt that either this girl must be his or it
would go badly with him. He wandered to the place where they had met
yesterday; he did not expect that she would be there again; but when
he saw her, he felt that he must make the venture; and when he came to
see that she was feeling just as he was--"Why, then"--and he raised
her head gently. And she had stopped crying, and his eyes shone so
that she had to look into them, and then she turned red and put her
head down again.

He went on talking in his low, half-whispering voice. The sun shone