n all sides with
visible anxiety, then, seized by I know not what impulse, darted toward
the pavilion. I was overwhelmed. What ought I to do? Warn my friend, my
childhood's companion? Yes, no doubt, but I felt ashamed to pour despair
into the mind of this good fellow and to cause a horrible exposure. "If
he can be kept in ignorance," I said to myself, "and then perhaps I am
wrong--who knows? Perhaps this rendezvous is due to the most natural
motive possible."

I was seeking to deceive myself, to veil the evidence of my own eyes,
when suddenly one of the house doors opened noisily, and Oscar--Oscar
himself, in all the disorder of night attire, his hair rumpled, and his
dressing-gown floating loosely, passed before my window. He ran rather
than walked; but the anguish of his heart was too plainly revealed in
the strangeness of his movements. He knew all. I felt that a mishap was
inevitable. "Behold the outcome of all his happiness, behold the bitter
poison enclosed in so fair a vessel!" All these thoughts shot through
my mind like arrows. It was necessary above all to delay the explosion,
were it only for a moment, a second, and, beside myself, without giving
myself time to think of what I was going to say to him, I cried in a
sharp imperative tone:

"Oscar, come here; I want to speak to you."

He stopped as if petrified. He was ghastly pale, and, with an infernal
smile, replied, "I have no time-later on."

"Oscar, you must, I beg of you--you are mistaken."

At these words he broke into a fearful laugh.

"Mistaken--mistaken!"

And he ran toward the pavilion.

Seizing the skirt of his dressing-gown, I held him tightly, exclaiming:

"Don't go, my dear fellow, don't go; I beg of you on my knees not to
go."

By way of reply he gave me a hard blow on the arm with his fist,
exclaiming:

"What the devil is the matter with you?"

"I tell you that you can not go there, Oscar," I said, in a voice which
admitted of no contradiction.

"Then why did not you tell me at once."

And feverishly snatching his dressing-gown from my grasp, he began to
walk frantically up and down.

CHAPTER XVII. I SUP WITH MY WIFE

That evening, which chanced to be Christmas Eve, it was infernally cold.
The snow was falling in heavy flakes, and, driven by the wind, beat
furiously against the window panes. The distant chiming of the
bells could just be heard through this heavy and woolly atmosphere.
Foot-passengers, wrapped in thei