The rapping at the door was renewed. “I cannot, will not receive him,” she muttered; “it will be better not to be alone with him any more. I will bolt the door and make no reply whatever.”
She glided with soft steps across the room to the door, and was just about to bolt it, when the rapping resounded for the third time, and a modest female voice asked:
“Are you there, baroness, and may I walk in?”
“Ah, it is only my maid,” whispered the baroness, drawing a deep breath, as though an oppressive burden were removed from her breast, and she opened the door herself.
“Well, Fanchon,” she asked, in her gentle, winning voice, “what do you want?”
“Pardon me, baroness,” said the maid, casting an inquisitive look around the room, “the baron sent for me just now; he asked me if you had risen already and entered your boudoir, and when I replied in the affirmative, the baron gave me a message for you, with the express order, however, not to deliver it until you had taken your chocolate and finished your breakfast. I see now that I must not yet deliver it; the breakfast is still on the table just as it was brought in.”
“Take it away; I do not want to eat any thing,” said the baroness, hastily. “And now Fanchon, tell me your errand.”
Fanchon approached the table, and while she seized the silver salver, she cast a glance of tender anxiety on her pale, beautiful mistress.
“You are eating nothing at all, baroness,” she said, timidly; “for a week already I have had to remove the breakfast every morning in the same manner; you never tasted a morsel of it, and the valet de chambre says that you hardly eat any thing at the dinner-table either; you will be taken ill, baroness, if you go on in this manner, and—”
“Never mind, dear Fanchon,” her mistress interrupted her with a gentle smile, “I have hardly any appetite, it is true, but I do not feel unwell, nor do I want to be taken ill. Let us say no more about it, and tell me the message the baron intrusted to you.”