“Fraeulein, I need not answer your question,” returned Max, convincingly.

“But I love Twonette.  I know you do not come to see her, and I should not have spoken as I did,” said Yolanda, penitently.

Perhaps her penitential moods were the most bewitching—­certainly they were the most dangerous—­of all her many phases.

“You know why I come to the bridge, even though I do not,” said Max.  “Tell me, Fraeulein, why I come.”

“That is what you may tell me.  I came to hear it,” she answered softly, hanging her head.

“I may not speak, Fraeulein,” he replied, with a deep, regretful sigh.  “What I said to you on the road from Basel will be true as long as I live, but we agreed that it should not again be spoken between us.  For your sake more than for mine it is better that I remain silent.”

Yolanda hung her head, while her fingers were nervously busy with the points of her bodice.  She uttered a low laugh, flashed her eyes upon him for an instant, and again the long lashes shaded them.

“You need not be too considerate for my sake, Sir Max,” she whispered; “though—­though I confess that I never supposed any man could bring me to this condition of boldness.”

Max caught her hands, and, clasping them between his own, drew the girl toward him.  The top of her head was below his chin, and the delicious scent from her hair intoxicated his senses.  She felt his great frame tremble with emotion, and a thrill of exquisite delight sped through every fibre of her body, warming every drop of blood in her veins.  But Max, by a mighty effort, checked himself, and remained true to his self-imposed renunciation in word and act.  After a little time she drew her hands from his, saying:—­

“You are right, Max, to wish to save yourself and me from pain.”

“I wish to save you, Yolanda.  I want the pain; I hope it will cling to me all my life.  I want to save you from it.”

“Perhaps you are beginning too late, Max,” said the girl, sighing, “but—­but after all you are right.  Even as you see our situation it is impossible for us to be more than we are to each other.  But if you knew all the truth, you would see how utterly hopeless is the future in which I at one time thought I saw a ray of hope.  Our fate is sealed, Max; we are doomed.  Before long you shall know.  I will soon tell you all.”

“Do you wish to tell me now, Fraeulein?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered.

“In your own good time, Yolanda.  I would not urge you.”

Max understood Yolanda’s words to imply that her station in life was even lower than it seemed, or that there was some taint upon herself or her family.  Wishing to assure her that such a fact could not influence him, he said:—­

“You need not fear to tell me all concerning yourself or your family.  There can be no stain upon you, and even though your station be less than—­”