ou for
myself, also, dear friend," he added. "I imagine you wished to show me
kindness too. You knew what I suffered during those days, and that
nothing could give me more hope and courage than your sympathy. Will
you believe that amid all my anxiety for that beloved brother, I still
found time to miss you most painfully? If you had coldly remained
aloof, how I should have been forced to reproach myself for having
become half faithless to my brother, for the sake of a friend who was
perfectly indifferent to him!" She made no reply. It seemed as if she
had only half heard his words, and was brooding over a thought which
had nothing to do with him and his presence.

"You're fortunate," she said after a pause. "You have some one who can
make you both sad and happy. I--but do you know whom I have seen again?
The count."

Edwin started up. His face suddenly grew pale. After a long pause, he
said in a tone of forced indifference: "The count? In spite of the
unequivocal declaration you made by your change of residence--"

"Oh! If you only knew him! Such a foolish man is not easily rebuffed.
And I at least owe him thanks for having amused me, while you left me
all this time to grow melancholy."

"He has--? You've received him here--allowed him to visit you more than
once?"

"Why shouldn't I? If you should see him, you would understand that no
one can be less dangerous than this adorer. You know how fire-proof I
am; why I could spend a hundred years with such a lover, and my heart
would never beat one bit the faster! To be sure, at first, when, Heaven
knows how, he found me out and entered unannounced, I was extremely
angry at the intrusion and received him so coldly that he remained
standing at the door like a penitent and could not utter a word of the
apology which he had prepared. I said things to which no one else would
have submitted quietly. But he--at first he seemed utterly crushed, and
then he suddenly threw himself at my feet and faltered out that he was
a lost man, if I would not have compassion on him; that he had done
everything to prove how honorable his intentions were; he had forced
his mother, a very proud lady, to consent to receive me as her
daughter-in-law; his aristocratic relatives had caused him a great deal
of trouble, but he had at last succeeded in removing every obstacle
from the way, and now I rejected him and refused him all hope. And
then, still kneeling at my feet, he poured forth such a torr