I made no objections, and we separated accordingly, he going in one direction and I in the opposite one. For my own part, however, I had no fancy to seek adventures, and happening to come upon a convenient entrance of a window, I took refuge within the shadow of the curtains, and there fell into a brown study. There was one aspect of the affair in which my cousin and I were involved which had latterly begun to disquiet me not a little. It was this:--I could not believe that he was entirely and thoroughly in earnest. I had a misgiving, which I could not rid myself of, and which his every word and act tended to confirm, that he was not seriously in love at all, but was merely amusing himself (as he had done a hundred times before) with the pretence of being so. If I were correct in my suspicion, then the game which was fun to him was death to me. And yet, what could I do? Unless I knew for an absolute certainty that this view of the case were a true one, I could not in honour lift a finger to avert the consequence; and absolute certainty, in a matter of this kind, was unattainable. The upshot of my brown study was therefore a conviction of my own helplessness: and as I arrived at it, I raised my eyes to the clock, and saw it wanted but two or three minutes of the appointed hour. Edging along through the press as rapidly as I could, I soon came to the curtained doorway, and pushing aside the _portière_, I went in. The room was still empty--Floyd had not yet returned. 'Is it possible he can have met her?'--thought I. Even as the thought came, I heard a low, distinct woman's voice, apparently close at hand; and following it, a coarse, guttural one. I knew both, and all the blood in my veins tingled. Looking about, I noticed for the first time that the room I was in opened into another, the door of which was also closed by a _portière_. The next moment I had thrown it open and stood within. I saw the young lady crouched away in the farther corner of the room, her face pale, her lips set, her eyes sparkling; and before her, with his back towards me, I saw the overgrown bulk of Von Wurst. He was attempting to get his arm round her waist, at the same time thrusting forward his coarse face to kiss her. As her glance met mine, a light of relief entered into her face which, even at that crisis, filled me with a grand tremor of unreasoning delight. Von Wurst saw it too, and seemed at once to divine what had happened. He faced about immediately, his hand clutching at the hilt of his sabre. But before he could draw it from its sheath, I had thrown myself upon him, and seizing him by the collar of his uniform and by one of his epaulettes, I exerted all my strength and flung him violently backwards. He staggered, but did not fall. I perceived that the fellow had been drinking, and was in a mood to commit any violence or outrage. His face was red, and the veins of his forehead were swelled with passion.