Suspicion? Why should I suspect you, my husband?" In a low voice he replied: "I am sorry, I was only joking, little wife." She pressed her brow with her two fingers. "No, no," she went on, "I will not allow you to go away and leave me all alone. I have to take care of everything, and how am I to do that if you go away?" She became animated in defence of her rights. He listened to her resolutely without answering her. "And it would be quite different," he continued, "if your sister were at home. Or how is it if I take you with me to see the estate? But how is it if I do not tell you where I am going and what I have to do? You would remain at home all day with your two children; you would know nothing. You would look at the servants and servants would look at you. Everybody would know that you have no husband. Nobody could have any confidence in you. And how would it be if I should say that I am going to work, to take care of a field? The field would become barren. There is the barren field." She began to look at him with a glance of bewilderment. "I do not understand," she said. "When do you go?" He did not reply and went on talking to himself. "But there is one more thing that I wanted to tell you. I have to receive a message from the countess--yes, from her, and we shall meet." She looked at him in terror. "Who is the lady? Do you know her?" she inquired, after a moment's hesitation. "Well, there is an extraordinary coincidence!" he said. "And I do not believe in coincidences. But it is a mere chance, nevertheless." He wanted to laugh. "But I do not understand," she went on, trembling. "How can I do what you say, if you are gone away and do not return?" He seized her in his arms and kissed her passionately. "I have to go," he said, "to look after our fields and cattle. My children will go to a good school, and when they are a little older I will send for them. Do you know what I have heard the other day? The countess has a son who does not believe in anything at all. A big, big boy." He looked straight in front of him with shining eyes and a smile on his face. She was so astonished that he was able to kiss her once more, but not for long; her children woke up and began to cry. "Oh, dear, you see that I cannot stay," he said and laughed. Then he went to the window and waved his hand. A moment later he had to go away without seeing her again. "Farewell, my darling," he cried from the street. "Oh, don't grieve too much! When you come home in the evening, you will find your little children sitting at the window; you will think about me--and about me you will feel in your arms. Yes, I will come back--but not for long, and when you think I am coming--and when you look out of the window to see if I am not coming--you are already looking--there is nobody!" * * * * * II.--THE LITTLE MAID In one of the side-streets of one of the old villages, close to the outskirts of the city, lived three generations of one family. It was a large and comfortable house with a garden in front; and two tall trees shaded the gateway. All the house doors had hanging signs, "Doctor," "Barber," and "Furniture Repairing." Three men lived in the house, the grandfather, the father, and the son. The mother had died when her little daughter was a few years old. The father, a young widower, used to take his grandchild to a summer resort in the neighbourhood every year, so that she might learn to speak and think like other people. He took her not to a public school, as is usual, but to a private one where there were only eight girls in the whole school. Every year when she came home she had grown a year older. Sometimes she was in tears in the train, as she watched the trees and meadows go by; sometimes she fell asleep with the flowers in her hand, and woke up with a smile on her face. The years had gone by so quickly, as if she had been waiting in a cellar. Then one evening in autumn she was sitting by the window as usual, but she was not thinking of her home; she had taken the place of the mother who was dead. The father sat opposite her and talked of the things that went on in the school--about lessons, little children, and so on. But his words did not really reach her. She was busy thinking of other things. "Why do I always think of him?" she asked herself, and she seemed to hear a voice answering her thoughts. It was the voice of a man who was going to be a martyr for her sake. "Who is he?" she thought; "I do not know him." And so it was always; from the time she was a little girl she felt as though some one were calling to her, somebody she had known for many years. And now she was to see him again! "Well, then, we will wait until she is seventeen," said the father. "I have only three years more to do here. And what will you do, child? When you have finished your school, you will want to learn something better. What will you learn? What do you want to be?" He looked at her quietly. She made no reply, but the old woman, who had been sitting in the window-corner all the evening and was watching her, looked straight at her and shook her head. The next morning they went away and the school-teacher took her back to her home. They stayed there for the greater part of the year. The girl had become even more beautiful than she was before; she had never been so graceful. She was taller than most other girls of her age and her shoulders were high. She could turn very quickly, and she could run faster than the others; one saw her first when one came in and one stayed to look at her longest when she had gone. In summer she went out into the fields; she wore a small hat with a pink feather, and with her long dress she looked like an angel. The boys were shy of her, and did not approach very near when she passed them alone, for she looked very proud. One day her father took a newspaper which he was carrying to the post, and after reading it threw it down on the floor. "A good thing," he said, "we need not go away any more." And with this he began to look at the paper. "How warm it is!" said the mother, going out into the porch; "I cannot breathe in the street any longer. I think it is going to rain." But the father was reading the paper, and did not answer. In the middle of the day, the young girl had to go out, so her mother got ready to go with her. They walked along the highway and the air was so hot that the mother held her dress tight around her and kept moving the upper part of her body; she was ashamed to be so fat. There were some people standing by the side of the road and as she went past they stared at her. And at home people looked at her too, not because she was prettier than the others, but because she was so different. She was not thin and yellow like other girls, but round and rosy like a child. Her hair, which had been reddish brown, had become brown like that of a girl of fifteen. The father walked beside her as if nothing unusual had happened. The young girl did not stay very long with the farmer at the public-house, but she came home on foot through the wood. The leaves had become wet and heavy and the grass was green and deep. One might almost have thought that the sun was shining on the hills and trees. "Do you still think I should learn to be something," said the girl, to the young man whom she saw standing on a hill, "if I were allowed to?" Her parents saw that she looked pale and weary. "You must learn how to look after a family," said the father, "and the first thing that will be required of you is that you will learn to speak." When the first day of her stay at home had passed by, she went into the village with her grandmother. There she met people she had known before--the farmers' wives who often sat on the bench under her window to sew--and sometimes she went into the