had vanished with the sun. In a fit of despair he was going to throw himself from the bridge into the river; but he thought of Mela, and resolved to postpone this design till he had seen her once more; he therefore formed a plan to look out for her on the following day when she was going to mass, to gaze on her once more with delight, and then to cool his warm affection for ever in the cold waves of the Weser.
As he was going to leave the bridge, he met the old invalid with the wooden leg who had, in the meantime, endeavoured to guess at the motive with which the young man had watched the whole day on the bridge. He expected that Frank would go away, and he waited for his departure longer than he was accustomed to remain there. But at length his patience was exhausted, and curiosity prompted him to go and ask him the reason of his making the bridge his dwelling-place. “Pray sir,” he said, “will you permit me to ask?”
Frank, who was not in a gossipping humour, and now heard the address which he had so
