One thing I must consider, he continued—­after a long pause, during which he seemed to be considering whether he should say all he had to say, and finally decided upon doing so—­and that was, that my unfortunate hereditary disposition did not allow of my thinking of marriage; it might, he went on with a gesture, as if performing a last, decisive operation on the candle, even be regarded in the same light as if a leper married without heeding that he thereby transmitted his disease to his children.  I must not, however—­here he rose and laid his hand consolingly on my shoulder—­take these things too much to heart.  The most bitter remedies—­and unfortunately the truth was such—­are generally the wholesomest, and for my sick, dreaming nature, he thought, after earnest, mature consideration, that the unvarnished truth was the only means of giving health and salvation.

After once more holding up the candle over me, he retired with, a serious nod; be could easily see that for the moment I was not in a condition to carry on any conversation, or give him any answer.

It was, in all friendliness, the death-blow to all my dreams and illusions.

I felt stunned by the blow, although my inward understanding had not yet taken it in clearly.  My life’s old foreboding of misfortune was now at last confirmed.  Susanna had therefore, for me, been but borrowed sunshine now, and my hopes were to be extinguished for ever.

I lay perfectly calm, rather seeing this with my mind’s eye than thinking it, while the music sounded faintly from the ball-room, and little by little I felt myself with a dull pain die away, as it were, from everything that was dear to me in the world.  My body seemed to stiffen under the sorrow, and Susanna’s face, without a gleam of life in it, stood before me like something unnatural:  my love was a dead history.

As I still lay in a dull, motionless stupor, through which everything without appeared to me in a half mist, the door opened, and a lady came in.  She began hastily to repair with pins before the mirror a rent in her dress, but suddenly stopped, alarmed at seeing some one in the half-darkness lying on the bed.

I recognised Susanna, and, as it seemed to me, something told her that it must be I who lay there, for she approached as if to see, and whispered my name.

She probably thought I was asleep, as no answer came, and that it was neither right nor the time to wake me.  She stood by me for a moment as if considering, then bent over me till I felt her warm breath, gently kissed my forehead, and went out.

* * * * *

A Christmas visit in northern districts generally lasts a couple of days, often more.  But, as my father and the Martinezes had so much to do and our house was not very far, we were to go home as early as the next evening, while most of the others were to wait until the following day.

The minister’s family, however, were to remain as guests, together with the “notabilities,” to the end of the week.  In the meantime, as, early the next day, the minister and his wife were going to call on a family in the neighbourhood, Susanna had to stay at the magistrate’s house.