“Good-evening,” she said, in her calm, clear voice.  “I heard you out here, and thought you might like to know that, thanks to your treatment in the first instance, and such care as I have been able since to give it, my hand is once more in working order.”

“You are kind to come out and tell me so,” I said.  “I had no hope of seeing you to-night.  How long is it since you arrived?”

“About two hours,” she replied, carelessly.

“And you have been nearly three weeks away!”

“Have I?” said she, leaning her cheek upon her hand, and looking up dreamily into the night.  “I did not count the days.”

“That proves you passed them happily,” I said; not without some secret bitterness.

“Happily!” she echoed.  “What is happiness?”

“A word that we all translate differently,” I replied.

“And your own reading of it?” she said, interrogatively.

I hesitated.

“Do you inquire what is my need, individually?” I asked, “or do you want my general definition?”

“The latter.”

“I think, then, that the first requirement of happiness is work; the second, success.”

She sighed.

“I accept your definition,” she said, “and hope that you may realize it to the full in your own experience.  For myself, I have toiled and failed—­sought, and found not.  Judge, then, how I came to leave the days uncounted.”

The sadness of her attitude, the melancholy import of her words, the abstraction of her manner, filled me with a vague uneasiness.

“Failure is often the forerunner of success,” I replied, for want, perhaps, of something better to say.

She shook her head drearily, and stood looking up at the sky, where, every now and then, the moon shone out fitfully between the flying clouds.

“It is not the first time,” she murmured, “nor will it be the last—­and yet they say that God is merciful.”

She had forgotten my presence.  These words were not spoken to me, but in answer to her own thoughts.  I said nothing, but watched her upturned face.  It was pale as the wan moon overhead; thinner than before she went away; and sadder—­oh, how much sadder!

She roused herself presently, and turning to me, said:—­“I beg your pardon.  I am very absent; but I am greatly fatigued.  I have been travelling incessantly for two days and nights.”

“Then I will wish you good-night at once,” I said.

“Good-night,” she replied; and went back into her room.

The next morning Dr. Cheron smiled one of his cold smiles, and said:—­

“You look better to-day, my young friend.  I knew how it was with you—­no worse malady, after all, than ennui.  I shall take care to repeat the medicine from time to time.”

CHAPTER XLV.

UNDER THE STARS.

Hoping, yet scarcely expecting to see her, I went out upon my balcony the next night at the same hour; but the light of her lamp was bright within, no shadow obscured it, and no window opened.  So, after waiting for more than an hour, I gave her up, and returned to my work.  I did this for six nights in succession.  On the seventh she came.