“The baron wished me to ask you if you would permit him to pay you immediately a visit, and if you would receive him here in your boudoir.”
The baroness started, and an air of surprise overspread her features. “Tell the baron that he will be welcome, and that I am waiting for him,” she said then, calmly. But so soon as Fanchon had withdrawn, she whispered: “What is the meaning of all this? What is the reason of this unusual visit? Oh, my knees are trembling, and my heart is beating so violently, as though it wanted to burst. Why? What have I done, then? Am I a criminal, who is afraid to appear before her judge?”
She sank back into her arm-chair and covered her blushing face with her hands. “No,” she said, after a long pause, raising her head again, “no, I am no criminal, and my conscience is guiltless. I am able to raise my eyes freely to my husband and to my God. So far, I have honestly struggled against my own heart, and I shall struggle on in the same manner. I—ah! he is coming,” she interrupted herself when she heard steps in the adjoining room, and her eyes were fixed with an expression of anxious suspense on the door.
The latter opened, and her husband, Baron Arnstein, entered. His face was pale, and indicative of deep emotion; nevertheless, he saluted his wife with a kind smile, and bent down in order to kiss her hand, which she had silently given to him.
“I suppose you expected me?” he asked. “You knew, even before I sent Fanchon to you, that I should come and see you at the present hour?”
Fanny looked at him inquiringly, and in surprise. “I confess,” she said, in an embarrassed tone, “that I did not anticipate your visit by any means until Fanchon announced it to me, and I only mention it to apologize for the dishabille in which you find me.”
“Ah, you did not expect me, then?” exclaimed the baron, mournfully. “You have forgotten every thing? You did not remember that this is the anniversary of our wedding, and that five years have elapsed since that time?”
“Indeed,” whispered Fanny, in confusion, “I did not know that this was the day.”
“You felt its burden day after day, and it seemed to you, therefore, as though that ill-starred day were being renewed for you all the year round,” exclaimed the baron, sadly. “Pardon my impetuosity and my complaints,” he continued, when he saw that she turned pale and averted her face. “I will be gentle, and you shall have no reason to complain of me. But as you have forgotten the agreement which we made five years ago, permit me to remind you of it.”
He took a chair, and, sitting down opposite her, fixed a long, melancholy look upon her. “When I led you to the altar five years ago to-day,” he said, feelingly, “you were, perhaps, less beautiful than now, less brilliant, less majestic; but you were in better and less despondent spirits, although you were about to marry a man who was entirely indifferent to you.”