"My wife embraced her warmly, and declared she would not allow her to leave her care as yet. She had wagered with her that it would not be impossible to entice a little color into her velvety cheeks, and, for at least four weeks longer, she would use all her arts to win the bet. The little one, clinging about her neck, insisted that she would forget all her beautiful French if 'Aunt Lucile' went away. But when I heard a brief '_Eh bien! Je reste_,' from her, it was as if a hand which had been clutching my throat suddenly freed me again. I promised her brother to supply his place conscientiously, and, although I was fond of him, saw him depart with a certain sense of relief, as if he had stood between his sister and me, and had now left the field clear. "Yet his departure changed nothing whatever. To be sure, his room being empty, she had her bed taken in there, and arranged the other, where the instrument stood, as a sitting-room. We visited her there now and then, and she often came up to our room; but duets were not mentioned. "Indeed, she herself seemed to have lost all desire for music. Occasionally I heard her open the piano and begin this or that well-known piece. In the midst of it she would break off, often with a bad discord, as if in some unusual, ill-tempered mood. It seemed as though she began only to demand my violin as accompaniment, and proving unsuccessful in this, found the music suddenly distasteful. Once or twice I yielded to the temptation. But the playing excited me to such a feverish pitch that I, too, broke off in the midst of a passage, excusing myself afterward with an awkward pretence of an interruption, which she did not seem to believe. "In truth, it was just as my wife had said, I knew how much could be confessed in music, and shuddered before the sin of betraying to this stranger that I had lost half of my heart to her. "I was better able to guard my words and looks. We were scarcely ever alone together longer than a few seconds. She stayed in her room or on the terrace outside most of the time, and in our walks in the cool of the evening, she never left my wife's side; so that I, leading my child by the hand, often remained a long distance behind the two women, and pondered my strange fate without addressing a single word to her during the entire walk. "The evenings grew longer. The general sitting-room was not pleasant to us; so, after dinner, we assembled alternately in her room and our own; she and my wife with their handiwork, chatting or reading, while I either smoked my cigar on the balcony, or read aloud from some book. She liked to hear me read German poetry.