The room to which Edwin was conducted, was situated in a wing of some considerable length, a modern addition to the old castle, which had completely destroyed the symmetry of the rear of the edifice. The windows looked out upon the park, and on the other side a small staircase led down into the courtyard, which was surrounded by domestic offices, so that from thence the apartments in this one story wing could be reached without using the stairs and corridors of the castle.

The sun must have found free admittance to Edwin's room all day, for an oppressive atmosphere greeted him, which was not improved even after he had thrown both windows wide open. But under any circumstances, it would have been long ere he could have attempted to go to sleep. The events of the day and the anticipation of the morrow quickened his pulses. He went to the window and gazed out into the garden, where the lofty jet of a fountain fell into a basin lined with shells. The windows and balcony of the dining hall projected in softly rounded lines from the facade, now but dimly illuminated by a moon that was about to sink below the horizon. The remainder of the edifice lay in shadow, but in the other wing of the castle two lofty windows in the second story were brightly lighted. He did not doubt for a moment that she occupied them. How many evenings he had gazed up at her windows in JÄgerstrasse; now he found her here, once more in the count's rooms, this time of her own free will, and yet--

Voices in the corridor aroused him from the reverie into which this comparison had thrown him. The other guests were retiring to their rooms; Edwin distinctly recognized the different voices as they bade each other good night, and learned by the uniform double step, that the brothers ThaddÄus and MatthÄus occupied the room on his right, while that on his left was assigned to the fat landed proprietor. His right hand neighbors were perfectly quiet, and if their thoughts were as much alike as their faces, they could not have profited by any exchange. The stout gentleman was more troublesome. After spending half an hour in undressing, during which he whistled, muttered to himself, and several times, as if recollecting some story he had heard in the evening, burst into a roar of laughter, he at last threw himself on his bed so heavily, that it creakingly threatened to break under the burden, and almost instantly began to snore so persistently, and in such a variety of tones, that Edwin, who had been about to undress, renounced all idea of doing so and determined to spend the night in an arm-chair at the open window.

But even this became at last unendurable, and moreover the moist breath of the fountain allured him out into the silent night. He left the room without his hat and soon descended the little staircase and opened the door, which he found fastened with only a light bolt.

The courtyard lay as silent and deserted in the faint glimmering moonlight, as the garden on the opposite side. In order to reach the latter, he was obliged to pass around the whole wing, the stables, and the servant's rooms. As he glided by the little windows, he saw a dim light twinkling in one and involuntarily paused before it. He could look into a narrow chamber, where a young girl was sleeping, not in her bed, but on a stool before a low table, with her head leaning against the wall. A lantern beside her revealed her round, pretty face and graceful figure. She did not seem to have fallen asleep over her work, but while waiting for something or some one. The step pausing before her window roused her. She started up, hastily pushed her hair back from her forehead, and exclaimed as if still half asleep: "Is it you, Your Excellency?" Suddenly seeming to distinguish the strange face, she uttered a low exclamation, and upset the lantern. Then all was still.

Edwin walked on, wondering which of his table companions was the happy man expected. But when he passed through the courtyard gate into the park, all these thoughts vanished, and the magic of the silent night took complete possession of his senses.

He rested for some time on a bench near the fountain, cooling his hot brow in the spray that filled the air around him; then walked aimlessly down the principal avenue, and at last plunged into the more secluded portions of the park, where only a faint glimmer of moonlight pierced through the branches of the tall trees. Neatly kept paths ran in various directions, here and there stood a bench, a summer house, an umbrella-like tent, all tokens that the wanderer was not in the wild forest. Even the stream he now found, flowed between low, regularly formed banks, and was crossed at intervals by small bridges. Edwin turned into the narrow gravel walk beside the noiseless water, but the brook suddenly made a wide curve and ran under a high palisade, which surrounded a pond. At this spot the woods were less dense, and the stars were mirrored in the smooth surface of the little lake. Edwin walked around the enclosure, hoping to find an entrance. He thought of a bath here was tempting, and he saw at the end of the pond, under some tall shrubbery, a little building that was evidently used for this purpose. But a small entrance gate, which after some search he at last found, was securely locked, and he was about to give up his intention and return to the path, when he perceived a place in the palisade where the stakes stood so far apart that a deer, in case of necessity, could pass through. Urged on by his desire to bathe, he endeavored to widen the hole, and at last with some difficulty, succeeded in forcing his way through the opening.

He now went directly to the little building, but found it locked. The shore here, which was overgrown with bushes and marshy plants, was not suitable for bathing, but the opposite side, where a meadow sloped gently down to the water, seemed very well adapted to the purpose, and he bent his steps toward it. A feeling of strange delight stole over him, as he walked on through the soft night air, beside the still, dark water, from which no sound was heard save the melancholy croaking of a frog. A few tall trees stood at the end of the little lake, and some low bushes clustered around their roots. He determined to undress behind this natural screen.

But he had not even commenced, when he saw on the opposite shore dark figures approaching along the path by which he himself had come. As they neared the palisade, he also heard low voices, which grew more audible as they reached the little gate. Directly after a key rattled in the lock, and he saw two muffled figures enter the enclosure, which was lighted by the moonbeams--female figures wrapped in long black cloaks with hoods--who, after securing the gate behind them, turned toward the little bathing house.

He fairly gasped for breath, and began to consider whether he should have time and opportunity to retreat unobserved through the opening in the fence. But this seemed to be a dangerous venture. From the spot where he stood, to the low bushes that grew along the enclosure, there was not a tree or shrub to conceal him. And if he should be discovered--in what a light would his nocturnal entrance into this carefully guarded precinct appear!

But before he could think of any other expedient, all time for reflection was over. The door of the bathing house was opened and a slender white figure, whose unbound hair fell over her arms and shoulders, appeared on the upper step of the little flight of stairs that led into the lake. She raised her head and looked up for a moment toward the night sky, which had become slightly overcast, then let the bathing cloak wrapped around her fall, and stooped to the water to wet her forehead and breast, the next instant she sprang down the steps, disappeared a few seconds and then, shaking her dripping locks, rose to the surface.

Her companion appeared at the doorway and called out to her, Edwin could not distinguish her words but the bather replied in a smothered voice. Then both were silent. The swimmer divided the water with long, steady strokes, at intervals raising her head and shoulders above the surface to shake back the thick hair from her brow. Her face looked dazzling white in the dim light of the setting moon, but the middle of the pond, to which she had swum, was too far from the trees on the meadow, for any one standing there to obtain a distinct view of her features. Thus the mysterious nixie swam up and down the lake ten or twelve times, in the profoundest silence. Her companion had retired to the little house, and none but she seemed to be breathing in the forest solitude. Not a zephyr stirred the surface of the pond, not a leaf fell from the trees; the croaking of the frog had ceased; only at intervals, when the swimmer made a quick turn the water rippled audibly and the rushes along the shore swayed to and fro.

At last she seemed to grow weary, and lying on her back, floated for a time in a circle, so that only a little of the pale face appeared above the water. While so doing she came so near the shore, that the watcher behind the boughs could see the delicate white outline of the profile relieved against the dark water, and distinctly perceived how the eyes, raised quietly toward the night heavens, flashed with a peculiar light.

He had not doubted from the first moment the identity of the swimmer, and his heart leaped into his throat, as he recognized again the never to be forgotten face.

Finally as if the lake wished to draw the motionless figure down into its depths, the head sank lower and lower in the noiseless waves, as if resting on the softest pillows. At last the water rushed and whirled around the sinking form; she hastily turned and with powerful strokes swam back toward the steps.

Her companion was waiting, holding in her hands a large white linen cloak, which she threw over the swimmer as she ascended the stairs. The next moment both disappeared within the little house. The door, it is true, remained half open, but in the darkness it was impossible to distinguish anything within.

Ten minutes more elapsed, then the two muffled figures again appeared and proceeding to the gate of the enclosure, opened it, relocked it, and then retired along the foot path by which they had come.

A long time passed ere the secret witness of this scene left the spot through the hole in the enclosure of the pond. As soon as he found himself alone, he had instantly plunged into the waves, but it scarcely calmed the strange tumult in his blood. As the rising night-wind now tossed his wet hair and blew against his breast, it seemed as if instead of cooling him, it was trying to fan the glimmering sparks in the ashes of his memory.

He started at the thought and involuntarily paused, as something warned him not to return to the castle. "No," he said to himself, "that would be too cowardly, too pitiful. Four years, four such happy years--could I again be the old defenceless fool? And all for a pair of white arms and two nixie eyes? What power would man have over his own soul if the forces of nature could never be successfully battled against? No, brave heart, we will not evade the struggle."

He returned to the courtyard gate, after a long stroll in the park, which had thoroughly exhausted him. It was about two o'clock in the morning; the light in the countess' rooms was extinguished. Just as he was about to enter, he saw a man step cautiously out of the door of the room where the young girl slept and linger on the threshold a moment, as if to bid some one farewell. The doorway was in the shadow and the moon had set, yet as the late visitor now hurried past the buildings with elastic steps and then cautiously groped his way to the wing, Edwin distinctly recognized young Count Gaston; so the "endless yearning" which ennobled him, did not seem to prevent him from condescending to adventures which had a beginning, a middle, and an end.