his nose, and when he had perused
it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity.
My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted
sensation. He said he was happy--glad to have served me; but he had
done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime--only
scratched a few words on a sheet of paper.

Again I repeated to him--

"You have made me quite happy, and in a way that suits me; I do not
feel an obligation irksome, conferred by your kind hand; I do not feel
disposed to shun you because you have done me a favour; from this day
you must consent to admit me to your intimate acquaintance, for I shall
hereafter recur again and again to the pleasure of your society."

"Ainsi soit-il," was the reply, accompanied by a smile of benignant
content. I went away with its sunshine in my heart.

CHAPTER XXIII

IT was two o'clock when I returned to my lodgings; my dinner, just
brought in from a neighbouring hotel, smoked on the table; I sat down
thinking to eat--had the plate been heaped with potsherds and broken
glass, instead of boiled beef and haricots, I could not have made a more
signal failure: appetite had forsaken me. Impatient of seeing food
which I could not taste, I put it all aside into a cupboard, and then
demanded, "What shall I do till evening?" for before six P.M. it would
be vain to seek the Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges; its inhabitant (for me
it had but one) was detained by her vocation elsewhere. I walked in the
streets of Brussels, and I walked in my own room from two o'clock
till six; never once in that space of time did I sit down. I was in my
chamber when the last-named hour struck; I had just bathed my face and
feverish hands, and was standing near the glass; my cheek was crimson,
my eye was flame, still all my features looked quite settled and
calm. Descending swiftly the stair and stepping out, I was glad to see
Twilight drawing on in clouds; such shade was to me like a grateful
screen, and the chill of latter Autumn, breathing in a fitful wind from
the north-west, met me as a refreshing coolness. Still I saw it was cold
to others, for the women I passed were wrapped in shawls, and the men
had their coats buttoned close.

When are we quite happy? Was I so then? No; an urgent and growing dread
worried my nerves, and had worried them since the first moment good
tidings had reached me. How was Frances? It was ten weeks since I had
seen her, six