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fingers on her bare arm, caressing it. There was a strange light in his eyes. She was overcome by a longing to cast herself on his firm body, cling to him, confess everything and never let him go until he had forgiven her now, this very moment, now that he had seen her suffering.
    But the pale light was shining down from the ceiling, illuminating her face, and she was ashamed. She felt afraid to say anything.
    “Don’t worry, Fritz.” She tried to smile again, although she was still shivering all the way down to her bare toes. “I’m only feeling a little nervous strain. It will pass off.”
    The hand holding hers was quickly withdrawn. She felt afraid, now that she looked at him, pale in the glassy light, his forehead clouded by the shadow of dark thoughts. Slowly, he stood up.
    “I don’t know why, but these last few days I’ve felt as if you had something to tell me. Something that concerns only you and me. We are alone now, Irene.”
    She lay there motionless, as if hypnotised by that grave, veiled glance. How good, she felt, everything could be now, she had only to say two words, two little words—forgive me. And he wouldn’t ask what for. But why was the light on, that forthright, bold, light listening to them? She felt she could have said it in the dark, but in the light her strength failed her.
    “So there’s nothing, really nothing that you want to tell me?”
    It was a terrible temptation! How soft his voice was! She had never heard him speak like that before. But the light hanging from the ceiling, that yellow, avid light!
    She shook herself. “What can you be thinking of?” she laughed, and was seized by alarm again at hearing her own shrill tone of voice. “If I’m not sleeping well, does that mean I’m keeping secrets from you? Maybe even having some kind of adventure?”
    Once more she shivered. How false, how insincere those words sounded. She was horrified by herself, right to the marrow of her bones, and instinctively she looked away from him.
    “Well—good night, then.” He spoke curtly now, in an entirely different, sharp voice. It sounded like a threat, or black and dangerous mockery.
    Then he put out the light. She saw his pale shape disappear through the doorway, soundless, wan, a nocturnal ghost, and when the door closed she felt as if the lid of a coffin were coming down. The whole world, she felt, was dead and hollow except for her own heart, beating loud and frantically against her breast in her rigid body, bringing her pain and more pain every time it beat.
     
    Next day, when they were sitting at lunch together—the children had just been quarrelling, and it was quite difficult to make them calm down—the maid brought in a letter. For Madam, she said, and the messenger was waiting for an answer. Surprised, she saw unfamiliar handwriting on the envelope, and quickly opened it, only to suddenly turn pale when she read the first words. All at once she jumped up from the table. She was even more alarmed when she saw, from the evident surprise of the rest of the family, how thoughtlessly revealing her impetuous movement had been.
    The letter was short. Just three brief lines: ‘ Kindly give the bearer of this letter a hundred crowns at once .’ No signature, no date in the obviously disguised handwriting, only that cruelly urgent command! Irene hurried to her room to get the money, but she had mislaid the key to her money box. Frantically, she flung open all her drawers, rattling the contents about until at last she found it. She put the banknotes into an envelope with trembling fingers, and herself gave them to the messenger waiting at the door. She did it all mindlessly, as if under hypnosis, without even considering the possibility of hesitating. And then—hardly two minutes after leaving the dining room—she was back with her family again.
    There was silence. She sat down with a shrinking sense of uneasiness, and was just trying to think of some excuse in a hurry when—and