did not answer. Short, hot panting breaths came from her open mouth, and he felt that she was falling; as he carried her, she seemed to melt away.
She sat on the sofa and cried. "Don't be angry with me, Agnes," Diederich begged. Her eyes were wet as she looked at him. "I am crying with joy," said she. "I have waited so long for you."
"Why?" she asked, when he began to button her blouse,—"why do you cover me so soon? Do you no longer find me beautiful?"
He protested: "I am fully conscious of the responsibility I have undertaken."
"Responsibility?" Agnes queried. "Whose is it? I have loved you for three years, but you did not know it. It must have been our fate."
With his hands in his pockets Diederich was thinking that such is the fate of light-minded women. At the same time, he felt the need of hearing her repeat her protestations. "So I am really the only man you ever loved?"
"I saw that you did not believe me. It was terrible when I knew that you had stopped coming, and that everything was over. It was really awful. I wanted to write to you, to go and see you. I lost courage each time, because you might not want me any more. I was so run down that papa had to take me away."
"Where to?" asked Diederich, but Agnes did not answer. She drew him to her again. "Be good to me, I have no one but you!"
"Then you haven't got much," thought Diederich, embarrassed. Agnes appeared greatly diminished in his eyes, and lowered in his estimation, since he had proof that she loved him. He also said to himself that one could not believe everything a girl said who behaved like that.
"And Mahlmann?" he queried mockingly. "There must
