moment in the silence and the night there was a deathlike tension, as though two enemies were seeking each other in the darkness and seeking in vain. Then the straw mattress creaked again; his mother must have raised herself to a sitting position in the high bed, because her clear voice now seemed to come from above.
"Paul, who told you all this? Perhaps it is not true."
Again he felt that it was his conscience speaking to him through her, but he answered at once:
"It may be true. But that is not the question, mother. It is that I fear she may commit some folly. She is alone in the hands of servants, and I must see her."
"Paul!"
"I must," he repeated, raising his voice almost to a shout; but it was himself he was trying to convince, not his mother.
"Paul, you promised!"
"I know I promised, and for that very reason I have come to tell you before I go. I
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