t to do this actress an
injustice; she had her face as completely under control as ever--the
innocent violet eyes, the Madonna mouth, the clear forehead--and yet it
_was_ her face that sent a shudder to my inmost heart. Was that the
mien of a mother, hastening to her child that lay at the door of death?
of a wife returning, after such anxious weeks of separation, to the
husband whom she pretended to have married for love?

"Enough! The fate of our lives was decided in the first few hours. But
I was crafty too, and played my _role_ bravely. That we should refrain
from all demonstrations of tenderness, while our child lay in such
danger, was so natural--she herself could find nothing wrong in this.
But on the following morning, after the night had brought a change for
the better and we were able to breathe freely once more, she said to
me--and I can see her before me now, as she knelt at a trunk and turned
over the gay contents trying to find a comfortable dress to put on, for
she had not taken off her clothes during the night--'Do you know,
Hans,' she said, looking up at me with her dove-like eyes, half
petulantly, half pleadingly, 'do you know that it isn't at all nice of
you not to have paid me a single compliment upon how well I am looking?
I left a gallant husband, and find a cold-hearted bear. Come, as a
punishment, I will let you kiss this little slipper, that I might have
put on the neck of the whole male population of the island if I had
wanted to.'

"'Lucie,' said I, 'I want first to make a request of you.'

"'About what?' asked she, innocently.

"'That you will swear to me, by the life of our child, that it is only
a devilish delusion, sprung from my jealous dreams, that makes me think
you do not come back to me what you were when you went away.'

"I had arranged this sentence word for word, just as one loads with the
greatest care a gun with which one wants to take sure aim. And I did
not miss the mark. She suddenly flushed purple, bent down her head over
the trunk, and fumbled nervously with the heap of sashes and scarfs.

"But she quickly recovered herself.

"'You have had bad dreams?' she asked, still quite unabashed. 'What did
you dream, then?'

"And I replied: 'That you had been unfaithful to me. It is nonsense; I
know that you can give me back my peace by a single word. But, unless
you speak this word--did you understand me, Lucie? By the life of our
child, who lies there barely escaped from dea