She lit the candles upon his table and leaned over him, scanning his features, startled by their ghastly pallor. "What is the matter with you, Ossi?--I cannot endure any longer to see you silently suffering such pain and distress." "Nothing," he said dully--"nothing." "Nothing! Can you--will you say that to me,--to me, your mother! A while ago, when you returned from Prague, I thought you changed, but you soon recovered; yet all last evening I was conscious that you were tormented by some secret anguish. For God's sake, tell me what it is." As she spoke she stroked his arms soothingly from the shoulder downwards. "If you only knew what torture it is to me to see you suffer without being able to help you, or at least to share your pain with you!" The nameless magic of her presence affected him more powerfully than ever--her tender caress produced in him the delightful, languid sensation of convalescence. For a moment he half-resolved to tell her everything, that she might once for all allay his pain. But his cheek flushed,--how could he?--no, he must master it of himself. He pressed both her hands to his lips.--"Do not ask me, mother, I pray you," he murmured, "how often must I repeat that I cannot, try as I may, tell you everything." The Countess gravely shook her head. "That excuse does not satisfy me; I can understand that it is easier to speak of certain things to a father than to a mother, but don't you know that never since your boyhood have I tried to keep you in leading-strings? When did I ever play the spy upon your actions, or meddle with what did not concern a mother?" "Never, mother dear, so long as I was well and happy," he assented, involuntarily adopting a tone of tender raillery, "but, if I happened to hang my head,--oh, then, you were sometimes very indiscreet." "A son who is ill or unhappy is always about two years old for his mother," she said. "Come now, confess; I am an old woman, you can speak out before me. I am convinced that your exaggerated conscientiousness is leading you to magnify some very commonplace affair;--an old love scrape is perhaps casting a shadow over your betrothal...." "You are mistaken, mamma, there is nothing to trouble me in my past; it is all as if it had never been." "Well, then, what troubles you?" For a moment he did not speak, then he said in a low tone rather hastily, "A wretched nervousness--sorry fancies! Can you believe it?--just before you came in, I saw plainly, as plainly as I see you, the laughing blind woman come towards me!" "Are you beginning to suffer from the Lodrin hallucinations?" the Countess exclaimed. The 'Lodrin hallucinations,'--she uttered the words carelessly, without reflection. His soul drank them in thirstily. "Apparently, mamma, but I shall get rid of them, I shall certainly get rid of them," he replied in a clear, joyous voice. "And what other fancies did your nerves suggest?" she asked, scrutinizing his face anxiously.