He had reached Hergyswyl by boat some hours before her; she, leaving
Basel in the morning, arrived by the Bruenigbahn in the afternoon.

"Do you know," Maria continued, "when I did not see you at the station,
my first sensation was one of relief; I trembled so! The second
sensation was different, was one of fright,"

Giovanni smiled,

"You never told me that," said he.

The young wife looked up at him and smiled in her turn.

"Perhaps you yourself have never told me quite everything about those
moments."

Giovanni placed his hands on her shoulders and whispered in her ear:

"That is true."

She started, and then laughed at herself for starting, and Giovanni
laughed with her.

"What, what?" she cried, her face aglow, vexed but still laughing. Her
husband whispered again, in a tone of great mystery:

"That your hat was in disorder!"

"Oh, that is not true! Really not true!"