And yet Greifenstein had move than once told his cousin that
he had married his wife when she was a widow five and twenty
years of age. This was the first occasion upon which Clara had
ever let fall a word which could serve as a starting-point in the
calculation, and though the baroness was the best and kindest
of mortals she would not have been a woman if she had failed
to notice the statement, or to draw from it such conclusions as
it offered to her ingenuity.
" The people who profit by the pardon will be old men," she
remarked.
"Old?" repeated Clara with a scarcely perceptible start.
"Not so very. They may be less than sixty — a man of sixty
is still young at that age. I wonder whether any of them will
profit by the permission to return. What do you think,
Therese ? "

The question was asked with every show of interest, and the
baroness raised her quiet eyes from her work. She and Clara
very rarely called each other by their first names. They gener-
ally avoided the difficulty by a plentiful use of the convenient
designation of cousin. Frau von Greifenstein evidently meant
to be more than usually confidential, and her companion won-
dered what was coming, and began to feel nervous.
" Really," she answered, " I do not know. I suppose that a
man who has been expelled from his country and exiled for
many years, would naturally take the first opportunity of



GEEIPENSTEIN. 51

returning. I should think it probable. On the other hand — "
she stopped a moment, to smooth a stitch in her work.
"On the other hand?" repeated Clara anxiously.
