"That is just what you said yesterday, Monsieur Maurice."
"And it is just what I shall say to-morrow, Gretchen, if you ask me again."
"But you won't stay in for ever, Monsieur Maurice!"
"Nay--'for ever' is a big word, little Gretchen."
"I don't believe you know how brightly the sun is shining!" I say coaxingly. "Just come to the window, and see."
Unwillingly enough, he lets himself be dragged across the room--unwillingly he looks out upon the glittering slopes and budding avenues beyond.
"Yes, yes--I see it," he replies with an impatient sigh; "but the shadow of that fellow in the corridor would hide the brightest sun that ever shone! I am not a galley-slave, that I should walk about with a garde-chiourme behind me."
"What do you mean, Monsieur Maurice?" I ask, startled by his unusual vehemence.
"I mean that I go free, petite--or not at all."
"Then--then you will fall ill!" I falter, amid fast-gathering tears.
"No, no--not I, Gretchen. What can have put that idea into your wise little head?"
"It was papa, Monsieur Maurice ... he said you were"....
Then, thinking suddenly how pale and wasted he had become of late, I hesitated.
"But if I insist on being told? Come, Gretchen, I must know what Colonel Bernhard said."
"He said it was wrong to stay in like this week after week, and month after month. He--he said you were killing yourself by inches, Monsieur Maurice."
Monsieur Maurice laughed a short bitter laugh.
"Killing myself!" he repeated. "Well, I hope not; for weary as I am of it, I would sooner go on bearing the burden of life than do my enemies the favour of dying out of their way."
The words, the look, the accent made me tremble. I never forgot them.
How could I forget that Monsieur Maurice had enemies--enemies who longed for his death?
So the first blush of early Spring went by; and the crocuses lived their little life and passed away, and the primroses came in their turn, yellowing every shady nook in the scented woods; and the larches put on their crimson tassels, and the laburnum its mantle of golden fringe, and the almond-tree burst into a leafless bloom of pink--and still Monsieur Maurice, adhering to his resolve, refused to stir one step beyond the threshold of his rooms.