SAMUEL BROHL GIVES UP THE PLAY
From 'Samuel Brohl and Company'
The gate opened and admitted Samuel Brohl, who had a smile on his lips. His first words were—"And your umbrella! You have forgotten it?"
Mademoiselle de Moriaz replied, "Do you not see that there is no sunshine?" And she remained leaning against the apple-tree.
He uplifted his hand to show her the blue sky; he let it fall again. He looked at Antoinette, and he was afraid. He guessed immediately that she knew all. At once he grew audacious.
"I spent a dull day yesterday," said he. "Madame de Lorcy invited me to dine with a crazy woman; but the night made up for it. I saw Engadine in my dreams—the firs, the Alpine pines, the emerald lakes, and a red hood."
"I too dreamed last night. I dreamed that the bracelet you gave me belonged to the crazy woman of whom you speak, and that she had her name engraved on it."
She threw him the bracelet; he picked it up, examined it, turned and re-turned it in his trembling fingers. She grew impatient. "Look at the place that has been forced open. Don't you know how to read?"
He read, and became stupefied. Who would have believed that this trinket that he had found among his father's old traps had come to him from Princess Gulof; that it was the price she had paid for Samuel Brohl's ignominy and shame? Samuel was a fatalist; he felt that his star had set, that Fate had conspired to ruin his hopes, that he was found guilty and condemned. His heart grew heavy within him.