would joyfully have rendered the most menial service, merely to be near
them and to be permitted to show that the desire to prove her gratitude
had become the object of her life.

When, with good counsel for the future, he dismissed her from the chief
magistrate's room, he had asked her where she was to be found in case he
should have anything to say to her. It seemed as though, from mingled
alarm and joy, her heart would stop beating. If her lodgings, instead of
an insignificant tavern, had been her own palace, she would gladly have
opened all its gates to him, yet a feverish thrill ran through her limbs
at the thought that he might seek her among her vagabond companions, and
ask in return for his kindness what he would never have presumed to seek
had she been the child of reputable parents, yet which, with mingled
anger and happiness, she resolved not to refuse.

During the day and the night when she expected his visit, she had become
aware that she, who had never cared for any man save for the gifts he
bestowed, was fired with love for Lienhard. Such ardent yearning could
torture only a loving heart, yet what she felt was very unlike the love
with which she was familiar in songs, and had seen in other girls; for
she by no means thought with jealous rancour of the woman to whom he
belonged, body and soul--his beautiful wife. It rather seemed to her
that she was his, and he would no longer be the same if he were separated
from her, nay, as if her very love was hers also. When she heard a noise
outside of her little room she started, and eagerly as she yearned to see
him, blissful as she thought it must be to sink upon his breast and offer
him her lips to kiss, the bold ropedancer, who never cared for the
opinions of others, could not shake off, even for a moment, the fear of
wronging the fair wife who had a better right to him. Instead of hating
her, or even wishing to share the heart of the man she loved with his