While she spoke she moved away with hurried steps to meet a young man who had appeared on the bank of the broad river. He had been bending low to fasten his boat to the root of one of the willows, but when he saw her coming he came to meet her, and, throwing his arms about her, he kissed her till she asked for breathing time.
"There's a stranger yonder, Herman, and he will see us," she exclaimed, her face burning at the thought.
"A stranger?" Herman cried, flushing at being caught like that, and the girl's laugh rang out when she held back, still in his arms, and saw the colour of his browned face deepen.
"'Tis what I have told you, Herman, again and again," she said roguishly. "You ought to look before you love."
"Look before I love!" the young fellow blurted. "I looked, and saw a girl so sweet and lovely that I lost my heart at once. That's looking before you love, is it not? But where's the stranger? I can't see anyone."
Her lover's arm was still about her when Margaret turned to point to the man she left standing near the chestnut tree.
"He's gone!" she exclaimed, in real surprise, and, breaking away from Herman, she ran to the spot where she and the stranger had been standing. Then a cry of dismay broke from her lips. The man lay in a heap in the hollow, and, leaping into it, she dropped on her knees, and gazed at him with startled eyes.
"Is he dead?" cried Herman, who had come at her heels, and now was in the hollow by her side.
"God forbid!" the girl exclaimed, beginning to chafe the unconscious man's hands.
"He came here while I was waiting for you, Herman. He wanted to know how far it was to the city, and he seemed so distressed when I told him the gates would soon be shut—long before he could reach them. We cannot leave him here, poor man!"