He stood sunk in the deepest thought, his slender white fingers stroking his dark beard. "It is amusing to be the only well-informed man amongst the ignorant; amusing and sad. I feel it for the first time, now that I can no longer share my thoughts and plans with her. She has brought it on herself, and she is heaping wrong upon wrong. A little while ago and the measure was nearly full. If a spark of the old love remained in her she must have taken it differently. That pallor, that terror, that 'no!' at the mere vision of what formerly her soul thirsted for, as the thirsty traveller in the desert longs for the stream of water in the oasis. Only because it was a vision? Because it was not the truth? And if it were made truth?" Giraldi slowly paced the apartment. "His parents are dead, the monk may be disposed of, and the handsome youth can have no objection; he is vain and false, and in love; any one of the three would suffice to induce him to play the part. And then the likeness--it is not very striking, but she cannot convict me of falsehood when she sees him; and she must see him." In the anteroom was a stir as of several people moving; Giraldi, who was near the door, advanced a step nearer and listened; doubtless the visit announced in the niece's note. They were all pressing round her now; they who had formerly avoided Valerie as an outcast and castaway hastened to her now that she was their equal and doubly as powerful. They would try to make up by the flatteries and caresses of one hour for what they had for long years committed against her in their stupid shortsightedness. She had said once that she longed for this hour, in order that she might set her foot on the necks of her persecutors, and pay them back in their own coin for their treatment of her. He had just now repeated the words that had often been mentioned between them, but she had not taken them up. The old German love of family was moving in her towards her blood-relations, while her own flesh and blood--his own-- He struck his forehead with his clenched fist. "That was the only foolish action of my life. What would I give if I could undo it!" All was quiet again in the anteroom; Giraldi opened the door and beckoned in François, who handed him a number of visiting cards. "I brought them out again, monsieur," said François; "I was not sure of being able to remember those German names." "You must practise," said Giraldi, letting the cards run through his fingers; "Privy Councillor Wallbach, Frau Louisa von Wallbach (née Herrenburg Semlow), Ottomar von Werben, Carla von Wallbach--_mon Dieu!_ it is not so very difficult--I can remember twenty names that I have heard mentioned." "Oh yes, you, monsieur!" said François, bowing with a cringing smile. "I expect the same of you. How did madame receive the lady who came first, the young Fräulein Elsa von Werben!"