"If you knew, _Monsieur Jean_, how happy your _sympathie_, your cordial warmth makes me! Ah, _mon ami_, I am not what I perhaps seem to you, a superficial, selfish creature, who avails herself of her position in this house to gain some advantage. If you knew how this dependence, this forbearance humiliates me! My youth was so brilliant, so happy! If any one had told me then that I should ever enter a foreign German household--" And she now began to relate to me in French, with incredible fluency, the romance of her life, not more than half of which could I understand. But as, spite of my inexperience, I retained a sufficient degree of calmness to believe that even this half contained far more fiction than fact, I at last, relapsing into my former incivility, showed evident signs of impatience, and was just in the act of gently shaking off the hand that still held my arm, when her eyes filled with tears as she talked of her worshiped mother, and that honorable man, her father. "You are exciting yourself too much, mademoiselle," I said. "It is late--you must go to rest--to-morrow, if you wish--" Meantime I glanced into her room, which looked very untidy. The bed was already opened, and on the little night-table stood a candle which illumined the picture of the Madonna on the wall and a small black crucifix beneath it. "Oh, _mon ami_!" she sobbed, pressing my arm as if she needed some support in her grief, "_si vous saviez! Mon c[oe]ur est si sensible--tous les malheurs de ma vie_--" and then came a fresh torrent of revelations of her most private affairs, till terror brought cold drops of perspiration to my forehead and, in my helplessness, I could finally think of no other expedient than to whisper: "Calm yourself, Mademoiselle Suzon! Somebody is coming--if we should be found here--!" Her features suddenly changed their expression, she half closed her eyes, as if fainting, and murmuring with a gesture of horror: "Mon Dieu--je suis perdue!" tottered backward and would have fallen, had I not sprung forward and caught her with my free arm. Instantly I felt her throw her arm over my shoulder, clinging to me as if unconscious, and while we stood in this attitude and undoubtedly formed a very striking group, which I myself lighted effectively with the candle I held aloft, hasty footsteps, which I had only pretended to hear, actually did come up the staircase, and at the end of the corridor appeared the tall figure of one of the footmen, who served as the baron's valet. I was wild with rage and shame at having allowed myself to be caught in this suspicious position, and the thought darted like lightning through my brain that the whole scene had been merely a prearranged farce, to which in my good-natured simplicity I had fallen a victim! The fellow's manner strengthened this belief, as he grinned at me with insolent cunning. Besides, he had no reason to come here at this hour.