So saying she swept out of the room, throwing an offensively friendly nod at Wilhelm as she passed. To the grinning Anne, who was waiting in the hall to see her to her carriage, she said: "Well, it looks serious this time--the countess is over head and ears. But it is quite true, he is much better-looking than any of the others." "Looks are not everything," returned Anne sagely, and her contemptuous shrug conveyed plainly enough that she did not share her mistress' taste. Upstairs Pilar had rushed over to Wilhelm as soon as the countess disappeared, and hid her face on his breast. Wilhelm pushed her gently away, and said sadly: "I have no right to reproach you, or, if I did, it would only be for not having been open with me, although you boast of your extreme truthfulness." "Wilhelm," she entreated, clasping his hand in both of hers, "do not judge me hastily. I might excuse myself, I might even deny it, but I am not capable of that. When I told you the story of my life, I believed honestly that I had made you a full confession. You shake your head? Is it true--I swear it is! This man had entirely escaped my memory. Why, I never loved him! It was in some part a childish folly, but principally pity and perhaps little caprice on the part of a bored and lonely woman. My heart had not the smallest part in it. He was given up by the doctors, they thought he might die any day--in such a case one gives oneself is one would offer him a cup of tisane--the action of a Good Samaritan." "Your defense," he said grimly, as he freed himself from her grasp, "is far worse than any reproach I might bring against you. You never loved him? Your heart had no part in this childish folly? That makes it all the uglier--then it becomes unpardonable. Love alone could extenuate such a fault to some degree." He turned to leave the room, but she threw herself upon him and clung to him. "You are right--quite right, darling," her voice half-choked with terror and excitement; "but forgive me--forgive me for the sake of my love to you. That story belongs to the past, and the past is buried--buried forever. I cannot believe myself that it is not all a hideous dream--that it should be really true! It was not I--it was another woman, a stranger whom I do not know--with whom I have nothing in common. I was not alive then--I have only lived since you were mine. Oh, why did you come so late?" And her wild, passionate words sank into heartrending sobs. He could not but be sorry for her. Was it wise, was it fitting to rake up the past? Had he any right to call her to account for faults which were not committed against him? She was good and pure now. She had not broken faith with him--not even in her thoughts--for she had no eyes for anybody in the world but him! He held out his hand to her. "I will forget what I heard to-day," he said, "and do not let us ever speak again of what has been."