Anne
declared that it was on the anniversary of the day on which Madame
la Comtesse had made the acquaintance of monsieur. At the breaking
up of the household, Monsieur le Docteur's things had been handed
over to him, Auguste, and he held them at monsieur's disposal.
Schrotter wrote in answer that he might keep them, and sent him a
small sum of money as a bequest from Wilhelm.
Pilar's suicide made somewhat of an impression on him. So there were
women, after all, who could die of love, and that not in the first
moments of a mad and passionate grief, but after months, when the
nerves have had time to cool down. "She was hysterical," Schrotter
said to himself, endeavoring thereby to dispel various uncomfortable
suggestions. He did not wholly succeed.
As Paul begged him so earnestly to come to his festival, he accepted
the invitation, and found himself, on the first of May, among the
guests whom Malvine received on the steps of Friesenmoor House.
In the great oak-paneled dining room, with its windows looking to
the west, a banquet was laid for twenty-four guests. Following the
country custom, they sat down to table at twelve o'clock. Malvine,
handsomely dressed and richly adorned, sat enthroned in the middle
of the long side of the table, and had Chamberlain von Swerte (of
the House of Hellebrand) and the Landrath, to right and left of her.
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