 entered, bringing me
a note from the Baron.

In it he begged me to spend a lonely evening with him, saying that his
wife was not well and that Matilda was going out.

I had not the nerve to refuse, and so I went.

The Baroness, more dead than alive, met me in the drawing-room, pressed
my hand against her heart and thanked me warmly for having resolved not
to rob her of a friend, a brother, for the sake of a mere nothing, a
misunderstanding.

"I really think she's going out of her mind," laughed the Baron,
releasing me from her hands.

"I _am_ mad, I know, mad with joy that our friend has come back to us
after he had decided to leave us for ever."

And she burst into tears.

"She's been suffering a great deal," explained her husband,
disconcerted by this scene.

And, indeed, she looked as if she were in a high fever. A sombre fire
burned in her eyes, which seemed to take up half of the little face;
her cheeks were of a greenish pallor. The sight of her hurt me. Her
frail body was shaken by fits of coughing.

Her uncle and father-in-law arrived unexpectedly. The fuel in the
great stove was replenished, and we sat down before the fire, without
lighting the lamps, to enjoy the cosy hour of the gathering twilight.

She took a seat by my side, while the three men began to talk politics.

I saw her eyes shine through the dusk, I felt the warmth which radiated
from her body.

Her skirts brushed against me, she leaned over to say something meant
for me alone, and attacked me with a whispered question--

"Do you believe in love?"

"No!"

My "no" struck her like a blow, for I had at the same time jumped up
and changed my seat.

She must be mad, I thought; and afraid of a scene I suggested that we
should have the lamps lighted.

During supper uncle and father-in-law discussed cousin Matilda
to their heart's content, praising her domesticity, her skill in
needlework. The Baron, who had drunk several glasses of punch, burst
out into extravagant eulogies and deplored, with alcoholic tears, the
unkind treatment to which the "de