“She had your things taken up to the box-room, so that she might not see them any more, and Madame la Marquise has your room, but Madame la Comtesse never sets foot in it.  The artist in hair says that there is talk of renting a new house, or even of going to Spain.  I should be very sorry to leave Madame la Comtesse, but to Spain I would not go.

“I should be glad to know from Monsieur le Docteur whether, after madame has consoled herself a little, I may give her monsieur’s address, that his things may be forwarded.  I hope you are well, and that you will write me a line.  You need not be anxious about madame, she will soon be all right again.  You were not the first, and, let us hope, you will not have been the last.

“I salute Monsieur le Docteur, “Your very obedient servant, “Auguste.

“Postscript.—­In spite of her desperation, madame had the presence of mind to try and persuade Anne you very probably had to fly from your political enemies, or had even been carried off and murdered by Prussian agents.  Anne said, ‘Yes; such things have happened.’  The viper!  You did well to take yourself out of this.”

Wilhelm was unaware that he read the letter twice or three times over without a pause between.  When he was beginning for the fourth time, he suddenly remembered that he was not alone, and that Schrotter was sitting there watching him.  He folded the letter in confusion.  He had not the courage to say anything, or even to look at his friend, but dropped his hands and his head, and cast down his miserable eyes.

Schrotter was the first to break the silence.

“I must beg you once more to forgive me for opening the letter.  Of course, I could not have an idea—­”

“No,” said Wilhelm in a low voice, “it is for me to ask your forgiveness for not having been open with you.  But I had every intention of making good my fault.  It was for that I asked you to meet me at Wittenberg.”

“Spare yourself the telling of anything that might be painful to you,” said Schrotter, with kindly forethought.  “I can guess the drift of it, and now understand your last letter.  I thought you would probably be in a frame of mind to need a friend near you, and so I came without delay.”

“I will not leave you to guess anything,” Wilhelm returned, and pressed Schrotter’s hand.  “I will tell you all; it is an absolute necessity to me, and will, at the same time, be a kind of atonement.”

And he began his confession in a low, dull voice, and with downcast eyes, like a sinner acknowledging a shameful deed, and Schrotter listened to him gravely and in silence, like a priest before whom some poor oppressed soul is casting down its burden of guilt.  Wilhelm kept nothing back, neither the mad intoxication of the first weeks, nor the bitter humiliation of the last.  He disclosed Pilar’s passion and his own weakness, the pagan sensuality and the artifices of the woman’s insatiable love, and the unworthy part he had played in her house before the servants and strangers.  He spoke of his tormenting doubts as to the justice of his actions, and concluded:  “And now, tell me, shall I answer this letter?”