They returned to the drawing-room, and Lilly noticed what had before escaped her attention, and that was an almost life-size portrait in an ornate frame hanging above the sofa, as if every other object in the room was there to pay it homage. The features and figure were, however, hidden by a covering of mauve stuff, which made it impossible to recognise them.
"What does that mean?" Lilly asked.
Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to a photograph on the escritoire veiled in the same mysterious fashion.
Lilly, full of curiosity, took hold of a corner of the drapery which screened the big picture from her view, and raised it a little.
"I wonder if I dare?" she asked timidly, as if she were about to commit a crime.
"Certainly, if you care to," he replied; and it seemed as if he were breathing more heavily than usual.
She tugged, tugged energetically; the drapery fell upon her ... and there in front of her eyes stood Walter von Prell, boldly sketched in pastel, wearing the uniform of his old regiment. Walter--her friend and fiancé!
Her knees shook. Icy-cold fingers crept through her hair. She refused to understand--to believe. Then she felt that Dehnicke took her hand and led her into the outer hall. He struck a match, and Lilly could now read on the plate the name she had before failed to decipher,
"Lilly Czepanek.
Pressed Flower Studio."
She gave a shrill cry, rushed back into the little drawing-room, and, burying her face in a corner of the sofa, gave vent to her long-restrained emotions in a burst of hot, blissful tears.