"'It is really you?' he said in a broken voice.
"'No doubt of that, Silvain,' I said in a cheerful tone, purposely assumed to put him at his ease, 'unless life is a delusion.'
"'Would it were!' he muttered, 'would it were!' And then, suspiciously, 'Did you come to seek me?'
"'No, Silvain; it is pure accident, if there be such a thing as accident.'
"'There is not,' he said; 'all is ordained.'
"'One of our old arguments, Silvain,' I said, still with a cheerful air; I would not humour his gloomy mood.
"'Do not mock me;' and he spread his hands, with upturned palms. 'Can you not see?'
"'I can see that you are in bad trim, which can easily be set right. Silvain,' I said reproachfully, 'this is not as we used to meet. I come to you with open arms, and you receive me with doubt and suspicion. Are we not, as we always were and always shall be, friends staunch and true? You are the same Silvain; I am the same Louis; unchanged, as you will find me if you care to prove me.'
"Avicia had risen and crept close to my side.
"'Friends staunch and true,' she said, echoing my words. 'You are not mocking him?'
"At this appeal I felt my pretended cheerfulness deserting me, but I caught the would-be runaway, and held it fast.
"'Food!' I exclaimed, rattling some money in my pocket. 'Would that I knew where to obtain it! Here am I, starving, lost in the woods last night, and with not an idea now how to get out of them. Can you show me the way?'
"'Then I am fortunate, indeed, in lighting on you, and I bless the chance. Ah, Silvain, how I searched for you! To leave me, without ever a word--I would not have believed it of you. It was as though you doubted my friendship, which,' I added, 'is as sincere at this moment as ever it was in the years gone by.' Here there was a little choking in my throat because of the tears which again flowed from his eyes. 'I went to the village three times to get news of you, and had to come away unsatisfied. I wrote to your home in Germany, and received no reply. We have much to tell each other. But I am forgetting. You are faint and weary, and so am I. Can you take us to an inn where we can put some cheerful life into our bodies?'
"I addressed this last question to Avicia, and she answered 'Yes,' and was about to lead the way when Silvain stopped her.