Naturally, I did not expect an explanation. But Theresa began of herself to tell me the story of her unhappy marriage; began to tell it with a self-possession which showed that she felt assured of a tribute of sympathy from every one. She told me of her fruitless attempts to make of her husband a sensible, useful, practical husband and citizen. For a time everything seemed to go right--until the child died. But from then on his guilty conscience had drawn him more and more away from her and from her influence. He neglected his practise more and more, he spoke quite openly in terms of scorn about his profession, he fell into bad company, began to go about with people who let their hair grow and didn’t wear shoes--and with them he appeared to have entirely lost all sense of what was decent and sensible. I listened in silence, shocked in my inmost heart to see how her hatred seemed to have robbed this woman of all sense of shame. “But Philip is a noble and true character,” I said finally. “He goes his own way perhaps-- But, believe me, he will come to himself again in solitude.” “In solitude?” she queried, with a scornful dropping of the corners of her mouth. “Philip is utterly ruined, I tell you. Because I refused to become a pupil to his immoral theories of life, he sought and found a more credulous companion. He is with her now, in Greece, I believe, or God knows where--” The faded eyes in the embittered little face gazed angrily into the distance, as if her spirit followed her husband and the other woman. Then her glance fell slowly back to the table, and she noticed that during her narrative I had mechanically taken the amulet from the little pearl bowl and had let it fall upon one of the books. Crushing her moistened handkerchief in her left hand, with the right she took up the amulet, laid it back in its place beside the little glass bottle, and pushed the little bowl until it stood just as it had before, to the left side of the majolica plate. Then I understood my poor friend, and my heart forgave him. THE FUR COAT BY LUDWIG FULDA [Illustration] _Fulda’s greatest achievement, perhaps, is his translation into German of Molière’s masterpieces, the success of which probably led him to also translate De Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.” But his popularity rests chiefly on his dramas, the best known of which is “The Talisman,” and on his short stories. When Fulda went to Munich in 1884, he came for a short time under the influence of Paul Heyse, evident in his short stories of the period, but soon fell into the inevitable realism of the present age in fiction. Later still he applied himself closely to the study of the language and artistic form of poetry. It is not surprising, then, to find his style so graceful and elegant._