The last words she whispered with infinite tenderness, and her head fell on his breast. Hysterically they clasped each other in their arms and, half laughing, half sobbing, looked into each other's eyes. Karl leaned over her, murmuring his love and kissing her eyes and hair.
"Be careful; he is in there," Olga warned him finally, again pointing at the door behind which their evil spirit lurked. Then she whispered shyly:
"Did my letter surprise you?"
"Letter?" Karl asked, astonished. "What letter, dear heart?"
"Karl, I understand you wish to be discreet," Olga said reproachfully, "but it is my first letter and I am not ashamed. Let us be honest; I am not afraid. I love you. When I wrote that letter I hardly knew what I was doing, and I must confess I felt ashamed at first. But I am no longer ashamed now; I am proud. Sometimes women do not write what they want, Karl, but they always want what they write. Karl, I would like to read that letter over again in your arms."
That letter meant much to Olga; it was her only love letter. She had never written to Karl before, except in the conventional boy and girl fashion, when she did not know how to express love. Her correspondence with Herman had always been of the most perfunctory sort. Never before had she poured out her soul as she did in this letter. Now she wanted to see what she had written; to read it over with the man for whom it was intended.
It was with a shock of pain that she beheld Karl's indifference, and she was amazed when he added:
"I received no letter from you, Olga."
"What! how can you say so? Was not a letter delivered to you this morning?"
"I assure you that I did not receive any letter from you," Karl said earnestly.