She was to see the stranger again on Monday. “I am asking your neighbour at the supper-table next Monday for another sitting with our medium,” the old Councillor had said to her with a mischievous smile. “He must make up for lost time, because he was called away unexpectedly. But if he did not see the medium asleep, at any rate he found Countess Told awake!” “All right! I shall be pleased to meet him again,” she had answered in a friendly and noncommittal tone. The door of the cell closed behind her, and she saw a figure seated on a stool, but it did not turn round. “Well?” it said growlingly. “Good morning,” said the Countess. The dancer turned round slowly. When she at length faced the Countess, the latter uttered a little cry, and with well-feigned astonishment hastened to Cara, exclaiming, “What, _you_ here, my dear! But we know each other! What a strange coincidence!” She began chattering at once, as if quite oblivious of Cara’s sullen mood. “Just imagine, they actually caught us all--at Schramm’s--the most noted resort of them all! I can tell you there was a fine to-do, my dear. One man sobbed, another tried to jump out of the window, and you know they are all shut up tight! Somebody sat down and wailed, ‘Oh my wife, my four children, I am disgraced for ever!’ There was a tremendous fluttering in the dovecot. I could not slip away in time, and so they got me too! Tell me what is the best thing for me to do? There’s nothing wrong in entering a gaming-house, and I have never once played!” But Cara only eyed her gloomily. “Do say something. Is there anything the matter?” pleaded the Countess. “The matter is that I want you to leave me alone,” answered the other. “Was the young gentleman with the fair sandy beard there?” “The one who played against Basch, you mean? No, he wasn’t there. I have never seen him since that night.” “Was the old Professor there?” “No, I didn’t see him either.” “Then you needn’t tell me any more about it; it doesn’t interest me. The whole world isn’t worth a pin. I am miserable, for I am forsaken and betrayed. There’s no interest left in life for me. I am lost and undone, and no one troubles any more about me than if I were a frozen field-mouse. What dirty dogs they are!” Suddenly she sprang from her stool and seized the Countess by the shoulders. “You were with the rest of us. I want to drum it into your head,” she continued with increasing vehemence, “that there never was anybody so treacherously betrayed as I have been. And there was no reason for doing it, for I was an artiste, a well-known and admired artiste, and here I am now, forsaken and betrayed! Cast aside like a squeezed-out orange!”