"What are you thinking of, Lena?"
"How beautiful it would be if I were up there."
"Do not speak so. You ought not to wish your life to be over; it is only a step from such a wish ..."
She smiled. "No, not that. I am not like the girl who ran and threw herself into the well, because her sweetheart danced with some one else. Do you remember when you told me about that?"
"But what do you mean then? It does not seem like you to say such a thing, just for the sake of talking."
"No, I meant it seriously. And really" (she pointed up to the sky), "I should be glad to be there. Then I should be at peace. But I can wait.... And now come, let us walk out in the fields. I brought no wrap and I find it cold sitting still."
And so they followed the same path through the fields that had led them the other time as far as the first houses of Wilmersdorf. The tower was plainly visible under the bright starry sky while a thin mist was drifting over the meadow land.
"Do you remember," said Botho, "how we took this same walk with Frau Dörr?"
She nodded. "That is why I proposed to come here; I was not chilly, or scarcely at all. Ah, that was such a beautiful day and I have never been so gay and happy, either before or afterwards. Even now my heart laughs, when I think how we walked along singing, 'Do you remember.' Yes, memory means so much--it means everything. And I have that and I can keep it and nothing can ever, take it away from me. And I can feel plainly how it will lighten my heart."
He embraced her. "You are so good."