n would not come."

"He will not be here at all?"

"Not at all?"

"I am surprised."

"I tried to persuade him to come," said I, apologetically. "But he would
not. He said he was going to have a little conversation at home with
himself."

"So!" She turned to me with a mounting color, which I saw flush to her
brow above her mask, and with parted lips.

"He has never cared for anything since Sigmund left us," I continued.

"Sigmund--was that the dear little boy?"

"You say very truly."

"Tell me about him. Was not his father very fond of him?"

"Fond! I never saw a man idolize his child so much. It was only
need--the hardest need that made them part."

"How--need? You do not mean poverty?" said she, somewhat awe-struck.

"Oh, no! Moral necessity. I do not know the reason. I have never asked.
But I know it was like a death-blow."

"Ah!" said she, and with a sudden movement removed her mask, as if she
felt it stifling her, and looked me in the face with her beautiful clear
eyes.

"Who could oblige him to part with his own child?" she asked.

"That I do not know, _mein Fraeulein_. What I do know is that some shadow
darkens my friend's life and imbitters it--that he not only can not do
what he wishes, but is forced to do what he hates--and that parting was
one of the things."

She looked at me with eagerness for some moments; then said, quickly:

"I can not help being interested in all this, but I fancy I ought not to
listen to it, for--for--I don't think he would like it. He--he--I
believe he dislikes me, and perhaps you had better say no more."

"Dislikes you!" I echoed. "Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes! he does," she repeated, with a faint smile, which struggled
for a moment with a look of pain, and then was extinguished. "I
certainly was once very rude to him, but I should not have thought he
was an ungenerous man--should you?"

"He is not ungenerous; the very reverse; he is too generous."

"It does not matter, I suppose," said she, repressing some emotion. "It
can make no difference, but it pains me to be so misunderstood and so
behaved to by one who was at first so kind to me--for he was very kind."

"_Mein Fraeulein_," said I, eager, though puzzled, "I can not explain
it; it is as great a mystery to me as to you. I know nothing of his
past--nothing of what he has been or done; nothing of who he is--only
of one thing I am sure--that he is not what he seems to be. He may be
called Eugen Courvoisier, or he m