r.

Late in the day, the count and Henrietta sat down at table alone for the
first time in their lives; but they did not eat a morsel. How could they
do it, seeing before them the empty seat, once occupied by her who was
the life of the whole house, and now never to be filled again?

And thus, for a long time, their meals were a steady reminder of their
loss. During the day they were seen wandering about the house, without
any apparent purpose, as if looking or hoping for something to happen.

But there was another true and warm heart, far from that house, which
had been sorely wounded by the death of the countess. Daniel had loved
her like a mother; and in his heart a mysterious voice warned him, that,
in losing her, he had well-nigh lost Henrietta.

He had called several times at the house of mourning; but it was only a
fortnight later that he was admitted. When Henrietta saw him, she felt
sorry she had not let him come in before. He had apparently suffered as
much as she; he looked pale; and his eyes were red.

They remained for some time seated opposite each other, without saying
a word, but deeply moved, and feeling instinctively that their common
grief bound them more firmly than ever to each other.

The count, in the meantime, walked up and down in the large room. He was
so much changed, that one might have failed to recognize him. There was
a strange want of steadiness in his movements; he looked almost like a
paralytic, whose crutches had suddenly broken down. Was he conscious
of the immense loss which he had suffered? His vanity was too great to
render that very probable.

"I shall master my grief as soon as I go back to work," he said.

He ought not to have done it; but he resumed his duties as a politician
at a time when they had become unusually difficult, and when great
things were expected of him. Two or three absurd, ridiculous, in fact
unpardonable blunders, ruined him forever. He lost his reputation as a
statesman, and with it his influence.

As yet, however, his reputation remained uninjured. No one suspected the
truth. They attributed the sudden failure of his faculties to the great
sorrow that had befallen him in the death of his wife.

"Who would have thought that he had loved her so deeply?" they asked one
another.

Henrietta was as much misled as the others, and perhaps even more. Her
respect and her admiration, so far from being diminished, only increased
day by day. She loved him al