We may, therefore, sit down in
peace, for we shall now be fourteen." A wave of relief swept through
the party, and, in the midst of their congratulations, in walked the
opportune guest, a tall, heavily bearded young man, with a strangely set
expression in his eyes and mouth, and not a vestige of colour in his
cheeks. It was noticed that after replying to the Count's salutations in
remarkably hollow tones that made those nearest him shiver, he took no
part in the conversation, and partook of nothing beyond a glass of wine
and some fruit. The evening passed in the usual manner; the guests, with
the exception of the stranger, went, and, eventually, the Count found
himself alone with the friend of his boyhood, the friend whom he had not
seen for years, and whom he had believed to be dead.

Wondering at the unusual reticence of his old chum, but attributing it
to shyness, the Count, seeing that he now had an opportunity for a chat,
and, anxious to hear what his friend had been doing in the long interval
since they had last met, sat down beside him on the couch, and thus
began: "How very odd that you should have turned up to-night! If you
hadn't come just when you did, I don't know what would have happened!"

"But I do!" was the quiet reply. "You would have been the first to rise
from the table, and, consequently, you would have died within the year.
That is why I came."

At this the Count burst out laughing. "Come, come, Max!" he cried. "You
always were a bit of a wag, and I see you haven't improved. But be
serious now, I beg you, and tell me what made you come to-night and what
you have been doing all these years? Why, it must be sixteen years, if a
day, since last I saw you!"

Max leaned back in his seat, and, regarding the Count earnestly with his
dark, penetrating eyes, said, "I have already told you why I came here
to-night, and you don't believe me, but WAIT! Now, as to what has
happened to me since we parted. Can I expect you to believe that?
Hardly! Anyhow, I will put you to the test. When we parted, if you
remember rightly, I had just passed my final, and having been elected
junior house surgeon at my hospital, St Christopher's, at Brunn, had
taken up my abode there. I remained at St Christopher's for two years,
just long enough to earn distinction in the operating theatre, when I
received a more lucrative appointment in Cracow. There I soon had a
private practice of my own and was on the high road to fame and fo