Through the languid summer air glide the harsh, forced modulations of the 'Kreisleriana.'
"Ah!" He wends his way to the drawing-room. There, in the romantic half-light that prevails, all the blinds and shades being closed to shut out the hot July sun, he sees a light figure seated at the piano. At his entrance she turns her golden head.
"Are you looking for any one?" she asks, in the midst of No. 6 of the 'Kreisleriana,' rather confused by his entrance, and trying furtively to brush away the tears that still show upon her cheeks.
"Yes; I was looking for you, Baroness Stella."
"For me?" she asks, in surprise.
"Yes; I wanted to ask you something."
"Well?" She takes her hand from the keys and turns round towards him, without rising.
"Three years ago I found a bracelet in a railway-coupé. Coming across it by chance to-day, I perceive that it is marked with your cipher. Does it belong----"
But Stella does not allow him to finish; deadly pale, and trembling in every limb, she has sprung up and taken the bracelet from his hand.
"Oh, you cannot tell all you restore to me with this bracelet!" she exclaims, and in her inexpressible delight she holds out to him both her hands.