With a sudden great groan, I caught her to my heart.

“My darling!” I cried, forgetting everything but her, “did you dream that I left you to go hunting?”

“What then, Rudolf? Ah! you’re not going—?”

“Well, it is hunting. I go to seek Michael in his lair.”

She had turned very pale.

“So, you see, sweet, I was not so poor a lover as you thought me. I shall not be long gone.”

“You will write to me, Rudolf?”

I was weak, but I could not say a word to stir suspicion in her.

“I’ll send you all my heart every day,” said I.

“And you’ll run no danger?”