Her hour had at last struck. She had gone to Baden-Baden....
There she had met Doctor Friedrich Reimann, private physician of Prince Sugatscheff, and she had learned to love him as he loved her.
And then she had lost him—by her own fault, as her heart had told her many a time....
She had never been able to make reparation, for he had disappeared immediately after that fatal hour, and though she had tried to find him, she had never been able to do so.
And she had smiled, jested, and ruled over her intimates as before. But her heart was no longer empty, it was filled with a bitter repentance.
She had borne it for a long time, but at last the life she was leading had become utterly distasteful to her.
She had then returned home, in the hope of forgetting what had happened, or, at any rate, of finding relief in no longer being obliged to wear a mask of happiness.
There she had found the man for whom she had sought. She had found him under circumstances she could not understand. But what did that matter? No one could prevent her marrying whom she would....
She longed to repair the wrong she had once done. She longed to be happy, and to make her lover happy....
For the first time in the long hours in which she had been sitting alone in the summer-house she smiled, and it was a smile of hope and love....