* * * * * Toward evening she asked me to go to the post-office and mail her letters myself. I took her carriage, and was back within an hour. “Mistress has asked for you,” said the negress, with a grin, as I ascended the wide marble stairs. “Has anyone been here?” “No one,” she replied, crouching down on the steps like a black cat. I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then stood before her bedroom door. Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy? Opening the door softly, I draw back the portiere. Wanda is lying on the ottoman, and does not seem to notice me. How beautiful she looks, in her silver-gray dress, which fits closely, and while displaying in tell-tale fashion her splendid figure, leaves her wonderful bust and arms bare. Her hair is interwoven with, and held up by a black velvet ribbon. A mighty fire is burning in the fire-place, the hanging lamp casts a reddish glow, and the whole room is as if drowned in blood. “Wanda,” I said at last. “Oh Severin,” she cried out joyously. “I have been impatiently waiting for you.” She leaped up, and folded me in her arms. She sat down again on the rich cushions and tried to draw me down to her side, but I softly slid down to her feet and placed my head in her lap. “Do you know I am very much in love with you to-day?” she whispered, brushing a few stray hairs from my forehead and kissing my eyes. “How beautiful your eyes are, I have always loved them as the best of you, but to-day they fairly intoxicate me. I am all—” She extended her magnificent limbs and tenderly looked at me from beneath her red lashes. “And you—you are cold—you hold me like a block of wood; wait, I’ll stir you with the fire of love,” she said, and again clung fawningly and caressingly to my lips. “I no longer please you; I suppose I’ll have to be cruel to you again, evidently I have been too kind to you to-day. Do you know, you little fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you for a while—” “But child—” “I want to.” “Wanda!” “Come, let me bind you,” she continued, and ran gaily through the room. “I want to see you very much in love, do you understand? Here are the ropes. I wonder if I can still do it?” She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind my back, pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner. “So,” she said, with gay eagerness. “Can you still move?” “No.” “Fine—” She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my head, and let it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight, and bound me to a pillar. A curious tremor seized me at that moment. “I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed,” I said with a low voice. “Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day,” exclaimed Wanda. “But put on your fur-jacket, please,” I said.