"I did hear some one," he muttered, and then in the moonlight he came skating past, saw me, and stopped.
"_Sie_, Fräulein!" he began, quickly, and then altering his tone. "The ice has broken. Let me help you."
"Don't come too near; the ice is very thin--it doesn't hold at all," I chattered, scarcely able to get the words out.
"You are cold?" he asked, and smiled. I felt the smile cruel; and realized that I probably looked rather ludicrous.
"Cold!" I repeated, with an irrepressible short sob.
He knelt down upon the ice at about a yard's distance from me.
"Here it is strong," said he, holding out his arms. "Lean this way, _mein Fräulein_, and I will lift you out."
"Oh, no! You will certainly fall in yourself."
"Do as I tell you," he said, imperatively, and I obeyed, leaning a little forward. He took me round the waist, lifted me quietly out of the water, and placed me upon the ice at a discreet distance from the hole in which I had been stuck, then rose himself, apparently undisturbed by the effort.
Miserable, degraded object that I felt! My clothes clinging round me; icy cold, shivering from head to foot; so aching with cold that I could no longer stand. As he opened his mouth to say something about its being "happily accomplished," I sunk upon my knees at his feet. My strength had deserted me; I could no longer support myself.
"Frozen!" he remarked to himself, as he stooped and half raised me. "I see what must be done. Let me take off your skates--_sonst geht's nicht_."
I sat down upon the ice, half hysterical, partly from the sense of the degrading, ludicrous plight I was in, partly from intense yet painful delight at being thus once more with him, seeing some recognition in his eyes again, and hearing some cordiality in his voice.
He unfastened my skates deftly and quickly, slung them over his arm, and helped me up again. I essayed feebly to walk, but my limbs were numb with cold. I could not put one foot before the other, but could only cling to his arm in silence.
"So!" said he, with a little laugh. "We are all alone here! A fine time for a moonlight skating."
"Ah! yes," said I, wearily, "but I can't move."
"You need not," said he. "I am going to carry you away in spite of yourself, like a popular preacher."