"Herr Geheimrath Heim and Herr Professor Möllner."
"Indeed!----Möllner!"
She was silent, and then passed into a quiet half slumber, but she smiled in her sleep.
Hilsborn and Johannes went out of the room on tiptoe. Without, they clasped each other's hands in mutual congratulations.
"What do you think now?" asked Johannes.
"I think she is safe," said Hilsborn.
Gretchen slipped out and joined them. "Oh, you should see her lying there now, so calm and quiet--she does not even murmur in her sleep as she did."
"Gretchen," said Johannes, "it is your doing. God bless you for it!"
Gretchen looked up at Hilsborn, who could not resist the temptation to put his arm around her and draw her towards him. Johannes smiled, for the first time for weeks, and said, "I saw it coming. Would that such happiness were mine!"
"But," said Gretchen timidly, "remember, it is a great deal harder to win such a creature as Ernestine than such a poor little thing as I. And only think what she will be when won!"