“Aniela dear, I beg your pardon from my whole heart for what I said yesterday.  Forgive and forget if you can, though I shall never forgive myself.”

She put out her hand at once, and I clung to it with my lips.  I could have groaned aloud; there is such a gulf between my love and my misery.  Aniela seemed to feel it too, for she did not withdraw her hand at once.  She too tried to control her emotion, and the feeling which urged her towards me.  Her neck and breast heaved as if she were strangling the sobs that rose to her throat.  She feels that I love her beyond everything; that a love like mine is not to be met with every day; and that it might have been a treasure of happiness to last our whole life.  Presently she grew more composed and her face became serene.  There was nothing but resignation there, and angelic goodness.

“There is peace between us, is there not?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And forever?”

“How can I tell, dearest?  You know best how things stand with me.”

Her eyes again grew misty, and again she recovered herself.

“All will be well,” she said, “you are so good.”

“I, good?” I exclaimed with real indignation; “do you not know that if you had not fallen ill yesterday I should—­”

I did not finish.  I suddenly remembered that it would be mean and cowardly to use such a weapon against her.  I felt all the more ashamed of my rashness as I saw the troubled eyes looking anxiously into mine.

“What did you want to say?”

“I was going to say words unworthy of myself; besides, they have no meaning now.”

“Leon!  I must know what you meant, else I shall have no peace.”

Suddenly a breath of wind blew a lock of her hair into her eyes.  I rose, and with the light, tender touch of a mother, put it back into its place.

“Dear Aniela, do not force me to tell what I ought to forget.  If it be a question of your peace of mind I pledge you my word that you need not have any fear for the future.”

“You promise this?” she asked, still looking intently at me.

“Yes, most solemnly and emphatically; will that satisfy you, and drive out any foolish notions from the little head?”

The postman coming in with a parcel of letters interrupted our conversation.  There was the usual budget from the East for Kromitzki; only one letter for Aniela, from Sniatynski (I recognized his handwriting on the envelope), and one for me from Clara.  The latter does not say much about herself, but inquires most minutely what I am doing.  I told Aniela who it was that had written, and she, to show me that all ill-feeling and constraint had gone, began to tease me.  I paid her back in the same coin, and pointing to Sniatynski’s letter said there was another poor man who had succumbed to little Aniela’s wiles.  We laughed and bandied jests for a little time.