What ailed me was that I was losing my senses.  I tore my hand away and rushed off in the opposite direction.  After a moment I retraced my steps; but she was gone.  Then I understood only one thing:  the time had come to put an end to life.  The thought seemed to me like a rift in the dark clouds that weighed upon me.  It was a strange state of consciousness, in one direction.  For the moment all thoughts about myself, about Aniela, were wiped from my memory; but I contemplated the thought of death with the greatest self-possession.  I knew, for instance, perfectly well that if I threw myself from the rocks it would be considered an accident, and if I shot myself in my own room my aunt would not survive the shock.  It was still stranger that, in spite of this consciousness, I did not feel called upon to make any choice, as if the connection between my reasoning and my will and its consequent action had been severed.  With a perfectly clear understanding that it would be better to throw myself from the rocks, I yet went back to the villa for my revolver.  Why?  I cannot explain it.  I only remember that I ran faster and faster, at last went up the stairs into my room, and began to search for the key of my portmanteau, where the revolver was.  Presently I heard steps approaching my door.  This roused me, and the thought flashed through my mind that it was Aniela, that she had guessed my intention, and came to prevent it.  The door was flung open, and there was my aunt, who called out in a breathless voice:—­

“Leon, go quick for the doctor!  Aniela has been taken ill.”

Hearing that, I forgot all else, and without hat I rushed forth, and in a quarter of an hour brought a doctor from the Straubinger hotel.  The doctor went to see Aniela, and I remained with my aunt on the veranda.  I asked her what had happened to Aniela.

“Half an hour ago,” said my aunt, “Aniela came back with such a feverishly burning face that both Celina and I asked whether anything had happened to her.  She replied, ‘Nothing, nothing,’ almost impatiently; and when Celina insisted upon knowing what was the matter with her, Aniela, for the first time since I have known her, lost her temper and cried out, ‘Why are you all bent upon tormenting me?’ Then she became quite hysterical, and laughed and cried.  We were terribly frightened, and then I came and asked you to fetch the doctor.  Thank God, she is calmer now.  How she wept, poor child, and asked us to forgive her for having spoken unkindly to us.”

I remained silent; my heart was too full for words.

My aunt paced up and down the veranda, and presently, her arms akimbo, stopped before me and said,—­

“Do you know, my boy, what I am thinking?  It is this:  We somehow do not like Kromitzki,—­even Celina is not fond of him; and Aniela sees it, and it hurts her feelings.  It is a strange thing; he does his best to make himself pleasant, and yet he always seems like an outsider.  It is not right, and it grieves Aniela.”