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Rh Leisenbohg nodded again.

"Of course you could not have suspected that Kläre Heil was leaving Vienna in the same train with me.}

Leisenbohg let his head sink heavily on his breast

"I did not suspect it any more than you," Sigurd continued. "I did not see Kläre until the next morning when we had stopped for breakfast. She was sitting over her coffee in the dining-room with Fanny Ringeiser. From the way she acted I thought that we had met purely by chance. It was not by chance."

"Go on," the Baron said, observing the green plaid as it swayed gently.

"She confessed to me later that it was not by chance. From this morning on we remained together, Kläre, Fanny, and I. We put up at one of your charming little Austrian lakes. We took a lonely house between water and forest, secluded from the rest of humanity. We were very happy."

He spoke so slowly that Leisenbohg nearly went mad.

"What did he bring me here for?" he thought. "What does he want of me? Did she confess to him? What does that have to do with him? Why is he staring into my face so steadily? Why am I sitting here in Molde on a verandah with a Pierrot? Isn't it merely a dream, after all? Perhaps I am sleeping in Kläre's arms? Perhaps this is the same night?"—And involuntarily he strained his eyes wide open.

"Will you avenge me?" Sigurd asked suddenly.

"Avenge? What for? What has happened?" the Baron asked; and he heard his own words as though they came from a distance.

"Because she has ruined me. Because I am lost."

"Explain to me, finally," Leisenbohg said in a hard dry voice.

"Fanny Ringeiser was with us," Sigurd continued. "She is a nice girl, don't you think?"

"Yes, she is a nice girl," Leisenbohg answered, and suddenly saw in front of him the half-dark room with the blue velvet furniture and the rep curtains, where he had talked with Fanny's mother hundreds of years ago.

"And she is quite a stupid girl, don't you think?"

"I think so," the Baron replied.

"I know so," Sigurd said. "She did not suspect how happy we were." And he was silent for a long while.