he pity! our poor dear young lady has been
miserable for nearly a year now. It's a shame to see such a sweet angel
as she is suffer like that and the master's quite heart-broken over it.
But there's nothing the matter with Mrs. Bernaner. How did you come to
think that she was sick?"

Muller did not intend to explain that the change in the housekeeper's
appearance, a change which had come about between Tuesday morning and
Thursday morning, might easily have made any one think that she was
ill. He gave as excuse for his question the old man's own words: "Why,
I thought that she might be ill also because you said yourself that the
housekeeper--what did you say her name was?"

"Bernauer, Mrs. Adele Bernauer. She was a widow when she came to take
care of the master. Her husband was a sergeant of artillery."

"Well, I mean," continued Muller, "you said yourself that when the
gentleman's parents died, Mrs. Bernauer was a fine active woman,
therefore I supposed she was no longer so."

Franz thought the matter over for a while. "I don't know just why I put
it that way. Indeed she's still as active as ever and always fresh and
well. It's true that for the last two or three days she's been very
nervous and since yesterday it is as if she was a changed woman. She
must be ill, I don't know how to explain it otherwise."

"What seems to be the matter with her?" asked Muller and then to explain
his interest in the housekeeper's health, he fabricated a story: "I
studied medicine at one time and although I didn't finish my course
or get a diploma, I've always had a great interest in such things, and
every now and then I'll take a case, particularly nervous diseases. That
was my specialty." Muller took up his glass and turned away from the
window, for he felt a slow flush rising to his cheeks. It was another
of Muller's peculiarities that he always felt an inward embarrassment at
the lies he was obliged to tell in his profession.

The butler did not seem to have noticed it however, and appeared eager
to tell of what concerned him in the housekeeper's appearance and
demeanour. "Why, yesterday at dinner time was the first that we began
to notice anything wrong with Mrs. Bernauer. The rest of us, that is,
Lizzie the upstairs girl, the cook and myself. She began to eat her
dinner with a good appetite, then suddenly, when we got as far as the
pudding, she let her fork fall and turned deathly white. She got up
without saying a word and le