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 ear, this fear which nearly kills me, because I keep it shut up within my own heart.

Stay here; talk to father and mother about indifferent things, while only one thought is in my mind—him; only one word on my lips—his name.

Stay here; sit quietly and nicely at meals and at work, while all my desire drags me to his bed.

To think that he could be ill and die, and that I should never hear of it, except through a notice in the papers. Die before I could say the last farewell, before I could give him a word or a glance.

So poverty-stricken, so lawless is my love, so miserable its conditions. In gloom and darkness it must creep along; never dare to step out into the daylight and demand its rights.

If you are taken from me in this night, my beloved, then as surely as my poor love is my only treasure I shall follow you.

But if to-morrow you wake up to life and health, if the day comes that I can again be with you, and you will tell me that you love me, then I will laugh at all my sorrows and confide to you my secret that I am richer than any one else in the world.

O God, that I may keep you!

2$nd$

HIS morning Christiane brought me the following letter addressed to her:

'My dear little girl! Did it frighten you so terribly to read that I was ill! But what could