Will you go and see Mr.Reffold this afternoon?
That would be a nice little change for him." Bernardine smiled.
"If you wish it," she answered.
Mrs.Reffold nodded and hastened away, and Bernardine continued her game, and, having finished it, rose to go.
The Reffolds were rich, and lived in a suite of apartments in the more luxurious part of the Kurhaus.
Bernardine knocked at the door, and the nurse came to open it.
"Mrs.Reffold asks me to visit Mr.Reffold," Bernardine said; and the nurse showed her into the pleasant sitting-room.
Mr.Reffold was lying on the sofa.

He looked up as Bernardine came in, and a smile of pleasure spread over his wan face.
"I don't know whether I intrude," said Bernardine; "but Mrs.Reffold said I might come to see you." Mr.Reffold signed to the nurse to withdraw.
She had never before spoken to him.

She had often seen him lying by himself in the sunshine.
"Are you paid for coming to me ?" asked eagerly.
The words seemed rude enough, but there was no rudeness in the manner.
"No, I am not paid," she said gently; and then she took a chair and sat near him.
"Ah, that's well!" he said, with a sigh of relief "I'm so tired of paid service.

To know that things are done for me because a certain amount of francs are given so that those things may be done--well, one gets weary of it; that's all!" There was bitterness in every word he spoke.

"I lie here," he said, "and the loneliness of it--the loneliness of it!" "Shall I read to you ?" she asked kindly.