"You are concealing something, lest it should annoy me," the countess said decidedly. "When will you learn that nothing in the world annoys me as much as your considerate reticence! I lie awake half the night when I see that you have some vexation to bear which you will not share with me. You ought to have no secrets from me." "In a certain way every honourable man must have secrets from her whom he respects as I respect you," Oswald said half-annoyed, half-tenderly, while he puzzled his brains to discover a way of pacifying his mother without telling either a falsehood or the whole truth. A brilliant idea then occurred to him. "In fact the matter is a very stupid affair. In the inn where I stopped during the storm I suddenly heard one of three men who were in the room speak with contempt of the Lodrin generosity; the fellow asserted that on the Lodrin estates the labourers lived in pens like pigs, and,--er--my temperament is not exactly stoical, and I,--in short I got angry. It is hard to hear such things when one honestly tries to treat his people well! And there may be some truth in it; I will make inquiries to-morrow, no, I will find out for myself. I can learn nothing from my bailiffs, they only cajole me. Last year there was typhus fever in Morowitz, the people died like flies, and I knew nothing of it; when at last I did learn about it I went there immediately, but the epidemic was well nigh at an end. _A propos_, mamma, I cannot but forgive you if it be so, but was it not all concealed from me at your request? You knew that I should go over there at once, and you were afraid of contagion." "No, my dear child," the countess said gravely, "foolishly anxious as I am about you upon trifling occasions,--and I have just shown how foolishly anxious I can be,--I never would lift a finger to seclude you from a peril if such peril lay in the path of duty. I would rather die of anxiety than hamper you or exert a detracting influence upon you in your line of conduct. I would be broken on the wheel to save your life, but----" she shuddered and moved closer to him,--"I would rather see you dead, than anything else save what you are--my pride, and a blessing to all around you!" She looked him full in the face, the mother's large, earnest eyes gleaming with exultant enthusiasm. "If you only knew how I suffered during that stupid storm! I am so glad to have you again, my boy, my fine, noble boy!" And drawing his head down to her she kissed him on the brow. The rustle of a newspaper attracted Oswald's attention, and for the first time he observed Georges, who, buried in the depths of a luxurious arm-chair, had been watching from behind his newspaper the little scene between mother and son. A servant appeared at the door--dinner was announced. CHAPTER X. "Very remarkable!" Georges said a few hours later as, smoking a cigar, he entered his cousin's bedroom, where Oswald was already in bed.