ing! O my God!--the--but I am crazy to let
myself be frightened by anything so--so impossible!"

"Yes, yes!" he said, in a hollow voice, and with a bitter smile;
"impossible. So many things seem to us, until those two great
magicians, chance and crime, complete the trick, and make the
impossible only too actual. I candidly confess to you that, when my
sound reason leaves me for a moment, I also hear a voice within me
crying: 'It is impossible!' And yet it must be so--and we can do
nothing but kick our bleeding heels against the thorns of fate. What is
the matter with you all at once? You have let your arm fall from my
shoulder. Are you angry with me, poor woman, because I am a beaten man?
Say yourself what is there left for us to do but to renounce and
despair? Because I am so quiet with it all, do you think I have grown
cold overnight? But it is only, as I said, because all strength has
left me; even the strength to feel the deadliest pains. Let me sleep an
hour, and then you will be satisfied with the pitiable way in which my
heart will behave."

He attempted to rise, but sank back again on his couch. Just at
this moment a knock was heard. They heard Angelica's voice on the
landing-place outside: "Only a word, Julie; I have something to give
you."

Julie arose, and opened the door. Immediately she returned to Jansen,
who sat there perfectly indifferent, bearing a letter in her hand.

"It is for you," she said. "It is Felix's handwriting. Will you open
it? I think you had better first go home with me and rest awhile, and
try to eat and sleep. You must have pretty well talked over everything
last night, so that it is hardly probable the letter can contain
anything new or important."

"Do you think so?" he said, in a peculiar tone. "Because we were
friends, I suppose you think that each of us must know all about the
other. Well, then, my poor darling, open the letter yourself, and you
will get at the tricks by which chance has made the impossible
possible. Read it, read it whatever it is, it can't tell me anything
more that is worth knowing!"

Breathlessly, she tore open the envelope; and standing at the window,
leaning her trembling figure against the sill for support, she read the
following lines.

CHAPTER XIV.

FELIX TO JANSEN.

"We parted so strangely, yesterday. Under the first shock of the
blow I ran away as if I had been blind and mad. A