Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/56

46 "I will tell you, my kind friend," she said, "the real truth. It is for your brother that I must go away. He loves me; he told me so this afternoon; and it is not delicate or kind after that for me to live in the same house with him. I shall never be so happy anywhere else. Nobody will make me so comfortable, and I am very, very sorry to go away; but I must," and Margaret, in her turn, was very near crying.

Annette had dried her tears, sprung to her feet, and now stood gazing at Margaret with such stupefaction in her face that Margaret could scarcely keep from smiling in spite of her distress.

"Karl—tell you he love you—to be his wife?" gasped Annette. "Oh, Miss Margaret, it has been a mistake. Karl has never told you that; Karl could not."

Margaret colored.

"I am not likely to be mistaken, Mrs. Reutner," she said, a little coldly. "I regret it more than I can say. But it is so, and I must go away."

Annette seemed like one in a dream. She was in haste to be gone. She replied at random to all Margaret said, and at last sobbed afresh:—

"Oh, Miss Margaret, I must go now. To-morrow I will hear you again. I think not that the good God sent you to our house to take you away like this;" and Annette was gone.

Wilhelm and Karl were seated in the dining room, smoking. Annette, with streaming eyes