My wound was healing. War and stern duty were as things of the far past. The grand passion had hold of me. I tried to fight it down, to shake it off, but somehow it had the claws of a tiger. There was an odd thing about it all: I could not for the life of me tell which of the two charming girls I loved the better. It may seem incredible; I could not understand it myself. They looked alike, and yet they were quite different. Louison was a year older and of stouter build. She had more animation also, and always a quicker and perhaps a brighter answer. The other had a face more serious, albeit no less beautiful, and a slower tongue. She had little to say, but her silence had much in it to admire, and, indeed, to remember. They appealed to different men in me with equal force, I did not then know why. A perplexing problem it was, and I had to think and suffer much before I saw the end of it, and really came to know what love is and what it is not.
Shortly I was near the end of this delightful season of illness. I had been out of bed a week. The baroness had read to me every day, and had been so kind that I felt a great shame for
