"Does she love me?" I asked myself the next morning on awakening. I feared to question myself more. I felt that her image—the image of the young girl with the "rire forcÉ"—was engraved on my mind, and that I could not easily efface it. I returned to L., and remained there the entire day, but I only caught a glimpse of Annouchka. She was indisposed; she had a headache. She only came down for a few moments, a handkerchief wrapped about her forehead. Pale and unsteady, with her eyes half closed, she smiled a little, and said,—

"It will pass away; it is nothing. Everything passes away, doesn't it?" and she went out.

I felt wearied, moved by a sensation of emptiness and sadness, and yet I could not decide to go away. Later on I went home without having seen her again.

I passed all the next morning in a kind of moral somnolence. I tried to lose myself by working; impossible, I could do nothing. I tried to force myself to think of nothing; that succeeded no better. I wandered about the town; I re-entered the house, then came out again.

"Are you not Monsieur N——?" said suddenly behind me the voice of a little boy.

I turned about,—a child had accosted me.

"From Mademoiselle Anna."

And he handed me a letter.

I opened it and recognized her handwriting, hasty and indistinct:—

"I must see you. Meet me to-day at four o'clock in the stone chapel, on the road that leads to the ruins.—I have been very imprudent. Come, for heaven's sake! You shall know everything. Say to the bearer, Yes."

"Is there any answer?" asked the little boy.

"Say to the young lady, Yes," I replied. And he ran away.