"You can lend your hand to Karl; he will return it."
Karl seized her hand and pressed it to his heart. Helen uttered a cry. Timid as a child, Karl released the hand.
"You did not hurt me," said Helen.
Karl promptly repossessed himself of the released hand.
"Brother," said Frederic, "did you not say you had a secret you wished to confide to Helen?"
"Oh yes, yes," cried Karl.
"All right, I am not listening."
Karl bent towards Helen's ear, and the sweet words "I love you" fell from his lips with a whisper as of a moth's wings, which flitting by your ear on a spring evening breathes the eternal secret of Nature.
"Oh! Frederic, Frederic!" cried Helen, hiding her forehead on his couch, "I was not mistaken!"
Then raising her head and languidly opening her beautiful eyes.