Silently up the stairs they went together, to the top, their steps reëchoing from the walls.
It really seemed now to Anna Maria as if her childhood had returned, the sweet, remote childhood, with a thousand bright, innocent hours. Involuntarily she held out to him her slender hand, and he seized it quickly and forced the maiden to stand still. The sound of the children's shouting came indistinctly to them up here; there was no one beside them in the dim corridor.
Words of pleasure at seeing the friend of her childhood again trembled on Anna Maria's lips, but when she tried to speak the man's eyes met hers, and her mouth remained closed. Slowly, and still looking at her, he drew the slender hand to his lips; she allowed it as if in a dream, then hastily caught her hand away.
"What is that?" she asked, half in jest, half in anger; "I gave you my hand because I was glad to greet the uncle of my childhood, and an uncle——"
"May not kiss one's hand," he supplied, a smile flitting over his face. Anna Maria did not see it, having stepped forward into the sitting-room. "A visitor, Klaus!" she called into the room, which was still dark.
"Ah!" at once replied a man's voice. "Stürmer, is it you? Welcome, welcome! You find us quite in the dark. We were just talking of you, and of old times; were we not, Aunt Rosamond?"
A merry greeting followed, an invitation to supper was given and accepted, and Klaus von Hegewitz called for lights.
"Oh, let us chat a little longer in the dark," said Aunt Rosamond. "Who knows but we should seem stranger to each other if a candle were lighted? Does it not seem, cher baron, as if it were yesterday that you were sitting here with us, and yet——"
"It is ten years ago, Stürmer," finished Klaus.
"Truly!" assented Stürmer, "ten years!"