“It is true,” she answered; “I ought to be accustomed to your German ways by this time.  But your reserve is quite uncanny to us Southerners.  You are silent where our hearts simply overflow with words quite of themselves.  You are content to think where we shout for joy.”

With these words Pilar depicted her own state.  She felt in truth that she could shout for joy, and the happy words flowed of themselves from her lips.  Now at last the future stood clearly and definitely outlined before her eyes.  Now indeed she was bound to Wilhelm, as was her burning desire, and that far faster than by any documents with solemn signatures and official seals.  Her heart was so light, she felt as if her feet no longer touched the ground and that she must float away into the blue ether like the ecstatic saints in the church pictures of her own country.  She talked incessantly of the coming being, and thought of nothing else waking or sleeping.  She had not the slightest doubt that it would be a boy.  Isabel had to lay the cards a dozen times, and the knave of spades came to the top nearly every time, an infallible promise of a boy.  And how beautiful he would be, the son of such a handsome father, the fruit of such transcendent love!  She consulted with Wilhelm what name he should receive, and wanted a definite statement or a suggestion, or at least some slight conjecture as to the profession his father would choose for him.  And should he be educated in Paris?  Would it not be too great a strain upon the little brain to have to learn French, Spanish, and German at the same time?  What anxieties, what responsibilities, but at the same time what bliss!  She did not even let Wilhelm see the whole depth of her feelings, knowing that he would not follow her in these extravagant raptures.  She did not let him see her kneel two or three times a day at the altar or on her priedieu, and cover the silver Madonna del Pilar with ecstatic kisses.  He knew nothing of her having sent for the priest of the diocese and ordered a number of masses.  She did not take him with her when—­her impatience leading her far ahead of events—­she rushed from shop to shop looking for a cradle, and only put off buying one because she could find none in all Paris that was sumptuous and costly enough.

This went on for about a fortnight, till one day she tottered into Wilhelm’s room, all dissolved in tears, sank sobbing at his feet, and hid her face on his knee.

“Pilar, what has happened?” he cried in alarm.

“Oh, Wilhelm, Wilhelm,” was all the answer he could get from her; and only after long and loving persuasion did she murmur in such low and broken tones that she had to repeat her words before he could understand her, “My happiness was premature, I was mistaken.”