“No,” was his answer, “he is not angry; he looked rather cheerful; he only grew impatient because I spoke to him twice; and then he sent me away to you: he was surprised that I should like to be with anyone else at all.” I warmed his plate by the fireside, and after a couple of hours, when the room was empty, he came in again, but not a whit calmer: with the same - I cannot call it otherwise - unnatural expression of joy under his dark brows, the same bloodless face, and a ghostly smile flitting over it now and then; the whole man trembled, not as in a chill or a fit of weakness, but as a strongly stretched string trembles; it was rather a violent shiver of joy than a tremor. “I have neither a cold nor a fever, Nelly,” he remarked, alluding to our conversation of the morning, ”and I intend to do honor to your dinner.” He picked up his knife and fork and was about to start eating when the inclination to do so suddenly seemed to disappear.