wfully weird."

"Of course it was weird," remarked Billy, and she leaned back among her
pillows and prepared to open and read her letter.

Boris wrote. There was no heading. "Tonight," the letter read, "at
about midnight, I shall be down by the linden near the park, waiting.
No one must know. On one side stands everything that you have till now
regarded as your life, on the other I stand--decide. If you take me,
then come. If you do not come, I shall forgive you and again walk in
loneliness my dark road. We shall never meet again. To approach so
great a happiness and then be obliged to forsake it again, is fatal."
There was also no signature. Billy dropped the letter; she did not need
to decide, she knew that she would go to him. It seemed to her as if
she scarcely had a voice in this, for the other, the alien Billy, was
acting, and it was she who must go down by night to the lime-tree.
Billy's glance fell upon Marion, whose eyes were fixed on her in
boundless expectancy. Billy smiled and shook her head a little and
said, "No, I can tell you nothing." Marion did not answer, but her eyes
filled with tears. She rose and crept softly out of the room; she was
very unhappy. During the whole time she had felt as if Billy's
love-affair were hers too; she had shared her love for Boris, the
excitements and pains, she had felt herself loved in Billy's person,
and now she was suddenly thrust aside and was again simply Marion
Bonnechose, who was excluded from all the destinies awaiting
countesses.

But activity and life came over Billy. She rang for Lina, asked for her
new muslin dress with the pink carnation figure, and called for her
coral necklace; and moreover she was friendly and talkative to the
chambermaid. Lina had to tell her about the forester to whom she was
provisionally engaged.

The day had grown very sultry, and in the west gray-blue clouds were
piled up. "We shall have a thunderstorm," said Count Hamilcar, as he
stood on the porch steps and sniffed the hot air of the garden.
Countess Betty stood beside him, bending her head to one side and
blinking up at the clouds. Over the garden walks Bob and Billy were
chasing each other. The count followed them with his eyes, then he
turned to his sister: "The emotional crisis seems to be passing off
nicely," he remarked.

Countess Betty however looked frightened. "Oh dear, Hamilcar, I don't
know, this merriment is not natural; I am so afraid for the child.
Madame Bonnec