trary to the original plan, they
were to set out immediately, and send the next day a carriage for Aunt
Claudine.

Bella extended her gloved right hand to Eric, saying in a low tone:--

"Good-night, Herr Captain."

The carriage drove off.

CHAPTER IX.

THOUGHTS OF THE RELEASED.

Bella sat quietly as she rode homewards with her husband. After a long
silence. Count Clodwig said,--

"My heart is full of happiness and joy; it is a real blessedness to see
a woman who is sixty years old, and who has never had a thought that
she needed to repent of."

Bella looked up quickly. "What does this mean? Has he any idea of what
has transpired?

"That cannot be; he would not, in that case, have referred to it. But
perhaps it is his lofty manner of giving a hint towards a life of
purity."

She was fearful of betraying herself if she made no answer, and yet she
was at a loss what to say. Making a violent effort of self-restraint,
she said at last,--

"This lady is very happy in her poverty; she has a noble,
highly-cultivated son."

Clodwig now looked round as if some one had pulled upon him. Could
Bella have had any notion that the thought had crossed his mind,--What
if this wife--and then Eric be thy son?

He was better off than Bella, for there was no necessity of his making
any reply; but he inwardly reproached himself for having had the
faintest impression of such a thought.

They drove along in silence; there was oneness of feeling, and yet each
had saddening thoughts; for the rest of the way not a word was spoken.
It seemed to Bella as if some mighty force must come and bear her away
into chaos, into annihilation. The carriage rattled so strangely, the
wheels grated, and the maid and the coachman looked to her like
goblins, and the flitting shadows of the moon like pictures in a dream,
and the carriage with its inmates like a monster; anger, shame, pride,
humiliation, were stormily coursing through her heart, that had not yet
been calmed.

She was enraged with herself that she, who was mature in worldly
experience, had allowed herself to be carried away by such a girlish
infatuation, for that was the name she still gave it. And had not her
self-love been wounded? Was not this the first time that she had ever
stretched out her hand without its being grasped?

It came across her that Eric might have overstated his love to her, in
order to lessen the