"That it is not easy for her to renounce her idea of Yosef. What has happened that he does not come?" "But if he should come?" "She would not marry Pelski." "Oh, I ridicule the idea that 'she would not.'" "Yes, for you ridicule everything. But Pan Yosef? Is it noble on his part to desert her in this way?" "Who knows what he intends to do?" "He ought to know himself," answered Malinka, decidedly, "and he should not conceal his intentions from her." "He has no time, he is working." That day, however, Malinka convinced herself that Yosef was not sitting so diligently at home as Augustinovich had represented. While walking with her mother, she met him passing with some young man. He did not notice them. Malinka was almost terrified at his appearance. He seemed to her as pale and crushed as if he had recovered from a grievous illness. "Then he has been sick," thought she, after returning home. Now she understood why Pan Adam would not explain the absence. "Yosef commanded him not to frighten Lula." All at once Yosef rose in Malinka's eyes to the loftiness of an ideal. Augustinovich came in the evening, as usual. In the drawing-room Pani Visberg and the countess were present. "Pan Adam," exclaimed Malinka, "I know why Pan Yosef has not been here for so long a time!" Lula's eyes gleamed, but that moment she controlled herself; still her hands trembled imperceptibly. "The poor man, he must have been very sick; he is as pale as if he had come out of a coffin! Why did you not tell us of this?" asked Pani Visberg, quickly. "Oh, Pan Adam was afraid that we should speak of it before Lula. Was that nice?" asked Malinka. "What is the matter with thee, Lula? Art sick?" "Nothing, nothing! I will come back in a moment." Her face was pale, breath failed her. She went out, almost fled to her chamber. Pani Visberg wished to follow her. Malinka detained her gently but decisively. "Thou must not go, mamma." Then she turned to Augustinovich; her voice had a sad and serious sound. "Pan Adam?" Augustinovich bit his lips. "Pan Adam! What is this? 'Lula is a coquette without a heart,' is she not?" "Perhaps I was mistaken," blurted out Augustinovich; "but--but--" He did not dare to cough out of himself at the moment that Yosef was going to marry Helena, that he would not come any more. On returning home he was also afraid to tell Yosef what had happened. Lula shut herself up in her chamber. Her head was on fire, and thoughts like a garland of sparks and ice were besieging her temples, and in the silence could be heard distinctly her hurried breathing and the throbbing of her heart. Pelski, Malinka, Pan Adam whirled around her in inexplicable chaos, and out of those fragments of thought as out of a grave rose higher and higher the pale, almost lifeless head of Yosef, with closed eyes. "He is sick! he is sick!" repeated she, in a whisper. "He will die, and never come here again."