which had not been so very pretty, and some which, in a different way, had been even downright dangerous and of which he could not rightly conceive to that very day how he had come to let himself in for them. It seemed to him sad, however, that youth had passed, and that with it he had forfeited the right still to expect something beautiful from life.
The carriage travelled on through the fields; the hills rose darkly around him and seemed higher than by day; from the little villas lights glimmered across to him; against the railing of a balcony a man and a woman were leaning silently, pressed closer to one another than they would, very likely, have dared to be in daylight. From a veranda on which a small company sat at their evening meal, came the sound of loud speech and laughter. Doctor Graesler began to be aware of his appetite; he found no small joy in the prospect of the supper which he made it a habit to take at the Silver Lion, and urged the leisurely driver on to greater speed. At the table reserved for the regular guests he found his acquaintances already gathered. He drank one more glass of wine than usual, because, as he knew from past experience, life had a way of appearing to him, through the consequent, almost imperceptible numbing of his faculties, as somehow sweeter and more bearable. At first he had intended telling about his day's visit at The Range, but, for some reason which was not entirely clear to him, he let it be. The wine failed of its effect, however, on this occasion, and Doctor Graesler arose from the table even more melancholy than he had sat down, and took himself off, with a slight headache, to his home.
III
During the next few days, in the vague expectation of meeting Sabine, Doctor Graesler took more frequently than usual the opportunity of wandering up and down the main street of the little town. Once during his office-hours, when the waiting-room happened by chance to be empty, he rushed down the steps as though seized by a sudden presentiment, and vainly took a hurried walk down as far as the pump-room and back again. That evening among his friends at the inn he mentioned, as though incidentally, that he had recently been called to The Range, and then listened tensely, even a trifle combatively, to hear whether someone would perhaps let fall a light word about Fräulein Sabine, such as is sometimes uttered, even
