"Enough! The fate of our lives was decided in the first few hours. But I was crafty too, and played my _rôle_ bravely. That we should refrain from all demonstrations of tenderness, while our child lay in such danger, was so natural--she herself could find nothing wrong in this. But on the following morning, after the night had brought a change for the better and we were able to breathe freely once more, she said to me--and I can see her before me now, as she knelt at a trunk and turned over the gay contents trying to find a comfortable dress to put on, for she had not taken off her clothes during the night--'Do you know, Hans,' she said, looking up at me with her dove-like eyes, half petulantly, half pleadingly, 'do you know that it isn't at all nice of you not to have paid me a single compliment upon how well I am looking? I left a gallant husband, and find a cold-hearted bear. Come, as a punishment, I will let you kiss this little slipper, that I might have put on the neck of the whole male population of the island if I had wanted to.' "'Lucie,' said I, 'I want first to make a request of you.' "'About what?' asked she, innocently. "'That you will swear to me, by the life of our child, that it is only a devilish delusion, sprung from my jealous dreams, that makes me think you do not come back to me what you were when you went away.' "I had arranged this sentence word for word, just as one loads with the greatest care a gun with which one wants to take sure aim. And I did not miss the mark. She suddenly flushed purple, bent down her head over the trunk, and fumbled nervously with the heap of sashes and scarfs. "But she quickly recovered herself. "'You have had bad dreams?' she asked, still quite unabashed. 'What did you dream, then?' "And I replied: 'That you had been unfaithful to me. It is nonsense; I know that you can give me back my peace by a single word. But, unless you speak this word--did you understand me, Lucie? By the life of our child, who lies there barely escaped from death--I only want to hear one word. I cannot reproach myself with any neglect of my duty toward _you_. Do you hear me, Lucie? Why don't you answer me? Can't you bear my look?' "She actually succeeded in forcing herself to look at me, but there was not the flash of innocent pride, of offended womanly honor; it was an unsteady, flickering defiance, and the flaring up of a hostile feeling, that I read in her eyes. "'I have no answer to such a question,' said she, with a gesture that carried me back to the time when she was on the stage. 'You insult me, Hans. Let us talk about something else. I will pardon you for the child's sake, and because of the anxiety you have been suffering.'