Sauntering up and down in the walks between the flower-beds, they only recalled their first intention to go into the house when they came near it a second time. They entered through the open door into a room whose admirable proportions, and simple, tasteful decoration made at once a most pleasing impression on Oswald. The tall chestnut-trees before the windows kept the room shady and cool. The subdued light was grateful to the eyes after the overwhelming sunshine of the garden. Comfortable chairs in various shapes and sizes, American rocking-chairs, French causeuses, a large grand-action piano, tables covered with books and portfolios, scattered here and there over the large room, gave it, amidst all the abundance of objects, something cozy, which contrasted most delightfully with the stiff regularity at the chÂteau of Grenwitz.

"I am quite curious to see if anybody will come when I ring," said Melitta, throwing her hat on a table and going towards the bell-rope; "it is by no means impossible that we may have to go ourselves to the pantry, provided always we can find the key."

She rang the bell and turned again to Oswald, who was looking at one of the marble busts with which the walls of the room were adorned.

"How do you like that mask?"

"Very much indeed--it is the Rondanini Medusa."

"Ah! I see you are a connoisseur."

"At best only an amateur. I have seen a good deal in the capital and elsewhere, but mostly only casts. It has been from boyhood up my most ardent wish to make a pilgrimage to Italy, in order to be able to worship at the feet of the great god Apollo Belvedere."

"Well, that is a very reasonable wish."

"Not so very reasonable, after all, if it is reasonable only to wish what we can attain."

"Then it would be unreasonable to wish for some refreshments now, as that does not seem attainable," said Melitta, in a playfully complaining tone. "But do we not often obtain something from Fate, merely because we wish for it most ardently, almost impertinently? Fate grants us our wish, as a mother often does the piece of cake to the importunate child, only to get rid of us."

"Fate is no capricious lady, but a hard, stony-hearted god, and if we want anything of him we must be firm."

"That may be so with you men, and perhaps it is well it should be so, else you would be too overbearing. But we women--what on earth would become of us if we had to be firm like that when we want a little happiness? We rather go to work and beg and pray, and when we are just about to give up all hope and to despair of all happiness--why, just then--you see, there comes Baumann, and with him a prospect that we may get some refreshments."

The door opened, and the form of a tall, thin man appeared on the threshold. He had quite a martial air with his old wrinkled face and bushy eyebrows; a deep scar ran across the bald forehead, past the left eye, and down the whole cheek, and his mouth was shaded by a heavy iron-gray mustache.

"Madam," he said, in a voice which seemed to rise from a deep cavern.

"Ah, Baumann, is everybody out?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"But I did not say they might go out. Where is mam'selle?"

"In Fashwitz, ma'am."

"And John?"

"Gone to see the forester."

"And the maids?"

"In the village."

"My good Baumann, we should like to have some supper."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Can you get us some?"

"Hardly!"

"Or can you find the key to the pantry?"

"Will hardly be possible."

"My dear Baumann, you must really see what can be done."

"Yes, ma'am."

Thereupon the strange fellow turned on his heels and marched out again.

"Well, what do you think of my maÎtre d'hÔtel?"

"I think the man is a great original; but why did he look at me all the time, with his big bright eyes?"

Melitta laughed.

"You must know that old Baumann was my father's servant, after having made all the campaigns against Napoleon in his regiment. He has rocked me, when I was a child, on his knees, has never left me since, and will not leave me till I die or he dies. Twice he has saved my life, and, without my knowing it or desiring it, shared every one of my sorrows, and, I may say, every joy. If I were to say to him: Baumann, you will have to go to Australia to-morrow for me! he would say: Yes, ma'am! pack his things over night, and be on his way before sunrise. And if I said: I cannot help it, Baumann, but you will have to die for me! he would say, Yes, ma'am! and not move a muscle. But if I said to him, Please hear, Baumann, or call him Mr. Baumann, he would think our friendship at an end. Now he is angry because I have not told him who you are. When he will know that, and find out that I am glad to see you here, he will be content again. Now mind what will happen. He will come back to tell us that he can do absolutely nothing for us. Thereupon I will give him the information about you, and make believe to go myself. Then we shall have peace. But you must look friendly when I mention you to him, you hear?"

"Don't fear, madam. I will be friendly, and smile as mildly as one of Guido Reni's angels."

The door opened once more. The old servant entered, marched into the room, remained standing precisely on the same spot as before, and said, looking again at Oswald:

"No possibility whatever, ma'am!"

"But, Baumann, that is a great pity. Here is Doctor Stein, who has specially come over from Grenwitz, and on foot, too, to talk with Mr. Bemperlein about Julius. And now both have driven out, and we cannot offer him a mouthful to eat or a glass of wine. And I myself have eaten nothing, as you know, since the morning, and am almost perishing for hunger."

Oswald found it difficult to keep the smile, which he had been ordered to show, from degenerating into broad laughter as he saw how the old man's face grew brighter and brighter with every word which Melitta uttered. At last he turned his look from one to the other, as if he were going to say: Well, you see, young people, after all, you can do nothing without old Baumann! Then he said:

"Well, as to the cellar-key, I have that in my pocket, ma'am."

"To be sure, and how about the key to the pantry?"

"Barely possible that mam'seile has put it again under the doorsill, although I have warned her against that many a time."

"Won't you look, Baumann, if it is there?"

"Yes, ma'am."

As soon as the door had closed after the old man, Melitta threw herself laughing into the rocking-chair.

"Did I not tell you?" she cried, rocking to and fro, joyous as a child that has had its will; "did I not tell you?"

Oswald had taken a seat opposite to her, at the large round table, on which an open album and drawing materials lay scattered about. His hand was playing with the pencil while he looked at Melitta, lost in thought.

"Are you going to draw my likeness?" asked Melitta.

"I wish I could."

"Why not? There is my album."

"That does not help me. You will have to teach me first how to draw directly with the eye."

"Ah, that is exactly what I always wish I could do. How often, when I am interested in a face, a figure, or a landscape, have I thought: Now you will hit it! and when I try to fix it on the paper, clear as it is before my eye, it is nothing but a caricature."

"I am sure your album will say the contrary. Is it permitted to look at it?"

"Not generally, but you may. In fact, it has no value but for myself; for I find there not only what I have drawn, but also what I have wished to draw. Besides, my album is a kind of diary. I probably commenced this one shortly before my Italian journey."

"Then you have been in Italy?"

"Two years ago, with my cousin Barnewitz and his wife. I wish you had been with us; first, on your account, for you deserve to see Italy, and then, on my account, because I should then not have been condemned to wander through the most beautiful landscapes and the richest collections alone, or in company with figures of wax. I used to tell then, as I always do, everything to my album, which received patiently what no one else cared to listen to."

Melitta had risen and placed herself by Oswald's side, who wanted to get up in order to give her a chair. But, in order to prevent that, she laid her hand lightly on his arm and let it rest there an instant--an instant only, and yet it was long enough to make Oswald's hand tremble and his voice shake when he said, turning over the leaves:

"These sketches must have been made before the journey to Italy. Here is the mysterious pond, at the edge of which I slept and dreamt this afternoon."

"You have not told me yet what you dreamt?"

"Yes, I told you all sorts of sweet foolish things."

"Of course about a lady?"

"Yes."

"Ah, then I must not ask for more?"

"Ah, how charming!" exclaimed Oswald, as he turned over a leaf. "How snugly ensconced this cottage lies in the forest. The old pine-trees stand around like gigantic guardians. The beech-tree spreads its mighty branches over it like a protecting deity. And here the creepers, climbing up and waving before the low windows, as if they were whispering: You are ours. And how dreamily that brook creeps along between reeds and ferns and down the deep green meadow in the foreground! That is a beautiful idea," said Oswald, looking up to Melitta from the book.

"And as you have found it all out so nicely, I will show it to you this very evening!"

"What! This is not a fancy picture?"

"Oh no! Perhaps those ducks hiding in the rushes from the hawk up there. The brook is the outlet of your mysterious lake in the forest."

"Ah, and thus only a continuation of my dream," said Oswald, turning over leaf after leaf.

A loose leaf fell into his hands. It had on it the head of a man in profile, drawn in beautiful bold lines. In a corner stood the letters A. V. O. and a date.

"That leaf will drop out," said Oswald.

"Let it drop, then!" replied Melitta.

The tone in which she said these few words was so peculiar, so entirely without the ordinary sweetness of her voice, that Oswald involuntarily looked up at her. He saw that her beautiful brows were contracted as if in anger, and her lips trembling. He looked down again instantly, and was about to put the leaf back in its place, when Melitta laid her hand on his arm and said:

"How do you like the head?"

A storm rose in Oswald's heart. He might have thrown himself instantly at Melitta's feet to cry out: Do I not love you, Melitta? How can you ask my opinion about a man whom you have loved, whom you perhaps still love? But he checked himself and said, with apparent calmness:

"It is the head of a man who recalls to me Tasso's words:

This man can never be happy, because he will never desire to be happy."

"And that is why this man will drop out of my life as this leaf drops out of my album. If one could kill memory as one can destroy a paper, it would no longer be here. But since that cannot be done, let it stay there. Go on!"

The storm in Oswald's heart had passed by. Like a soft spring breeze the thought came to him: She could not and would not tell you that if she did not think you deserved her confidence and her friendship. And he felt a sense of unspeakable happiness in this thought. It was one of those solemn, sublime moments which flash once or twice through the night of every man's life--one of those moments when we see the heavens open, and the angelic choir go up and down singing. Peace! Peace! unto our ready heart ...

In this blissful disposition he looked over the other drawings which Melitta had made during her Italian journey--landscapes in clear, well-defined lines; sketches from cities, palaces, streets, and ruins; between, a lazzaroni face or a dreamy girl's countenance. Then came studies from the antique, generally very painstaking studies; then again some subject was drawn over and over till it satisfied Melitta's keen criticism. A head of the Venus of Milo was particularly fine. On one of the following pages was the whole statue.

"Where did you draw that?" asked Oswald. "Surely not from a copy?"

"No, from the original! had become half a Catholic in Italy, and when I saw the lofty form in the Louvre in Paris, I said to myself, This, and no other, is your saint! Oh, you cannot imagine how beautiful she is! how beautiful and good! and this expression of heavenly goodness, which is not found in any other Venus, not, in fact, in any other antique head, but only in the Venus of Milo, touched me even more deeply than her heavenly beauty. When I saw that statue I felt for the first time in my life how it might be possible to pray, to pray sincerely, earnestly, before an image made by the hand of man. Why do you look so solemn and thoughtful? Here, take that pencil and write under the statue what you have just been thinking, for I saw you were making verses."

Oswald took the pencil which Melitta offered him, half in earnest, half in jest, and wrote, with a trembling hand, while Melitta was looking over his shoulder:

Oswald put down the pencil and looked up at Melitta. His glance met hers. For a few moments their eyes rested upon each other as if they wished to read in each other's souls.

Then old Baumann appeared in the door leading to the adjoining room, from which the clinking of plates and glasses had been heard for some time; he had a napkin on his arm, and said, as solemnly as the statue in Don Giovanni:

"Ma'am, dinner is ready!"

"Quick, come before our porridge is cold," called out Melitta.

"Let me only look at these few leaves," said Oswald. "I see there are but a few more."

"There is nothing worth looking at there," said Melitta, almost impatiently.

"Why, here is the Park at Grenwitz," exclaimed Oswald, as he turned over the last leaf in the act of rising. "The lawn behind the chÂteau. Here the Flora, there Bruno in full career----"

"And here are you!"

"Where?"

"There."

"That misty outline?" said Oswald, pointing at a spot by the side of the Flora where the faint traces of a figure were still perceptible, which had been rubbed out.

"That misty outline?" laughed Melitta. "I wished to draw you as you really looked, but I did not succeed. Now you shall appear as ErlkÖnig, who tries to catch Bruno--bodily, I mean, for his soul is yours already. How in the world did you manage to tame the wild leopard in so few days?"

"Only by a little sincere affection. Shakespeare calls flattery an infallible means to catch men; but I think love is a much safer one, and at the same time much nobler."

"And is not love the greatest flattery?"

Oswald and Melitta had exchanged these words while they were going into the adjoining room, a lofty, beautiful room, filled with old-fashioned furniture of great value. In the centre stood a small round table, on which refreshments were set out most invitingly. Old Baumann stood straight, like a taper, his napkin on his arm, behind one of the two high-backed, richly carved arm-chairs, and waited for some acknowledgment of his signal merits and for further orders.

"Well, what does our magic table have to offer?" said Melitta, sitting down, and inviting Oswald, by a gesture of the hand, to follow her example.

"Cold roast meat--preserves--charming, Baumann! Mam'seile will be angry that we could do so well without her."

"The housekeeper has come back from Fashwitz," said Baumann, opening a bottle at a side-table.

"I dare say she has never been away," whispered Melitta, smiling. "What have we to drink for our guest, Baumann?"

"Steinberger Cabinet, forty-two," said Baumann, filling Oswald's glass with the golden wine.

"And for myself?"

"Fresh spring water, perhaps a little raspberry-juice," replied Baumann, coolly, placing the bottle, with the cork in it, before Oswald.

"That will not satisfy me to-day, Baumann! How is it about our champagne?"

"No more, ma'am."

"But they sent us a box only the other day?"

"Has never been opened. Is down in the cellar."

"Ah, what a pity!" cried Melitta. "And I am almost perishing with thirst, and must needs have such a desire for champagne just to-day!"

"Well, well," said Baumann, comforting her, "maybe we can manage it."

Whereupon he marched out.

"You see, I have to beg for everything in my own house," said Melitta. "But why do you not eat? And what a little piece you have taken! The worst, too, in the dish! Oh, what unpractical creatures you men are! I see I shall have to take pity on you."

And although Oswald assured her that he had no appetite at all, she insisted upon helping him to the best that the table offered.

"You do not like it," she said at last, quite sadly, when she saw that the young man hardly touched the dishes. "Are you unwell?"

"I was never better in my life. But have you never felt as if eating and drinking were the most superfluous things in the world, and as if the gods of Olympus themselves, who only needed nectar and ambrosia, were the most wretched creatures, because they ate and drank?"

"Oh, yes! I have often felt so," replied Melitta. "I remember I felt so when my aunt took me to my first ball. But that is long, long ago, and since then my feelings have, as far as I remember, never had anything to do with my appetite."

In spite of this boast, however, Melitta also treated everything on the table, except some preserves, as a mere show-dinner. The sweet fire which made her bosom rise, and gave new lustre to her beautiful eyes, needed no food from the hands of Ceres. For the first time that day there were pauses in the conversation. Neither ventured to speak of that which filled their hearts to overflowing, and everything else appeared so little, so insignificant! They were both overcome by an embarrassment which they in vain tried to conceal under an assumed indifference. Both felt that a strong, unseen hand was gently lifting the mask which we all use in daily life to hide our real faces. When we hear the voice of the god of love, asking us in our paradise: "Where art thou?" we conceal ourselves and dare not answer ...

They felt almost relieved when old Baumann came in, bringing the merry child of Champagne in its silver cradle filled with ice, which he placed before Oswald on the table. How he could have succeeded so suddenly in bringing the desired wine from the deep cellar and out of the box, this was one of those enigmas which the old man loved dearly, and which he considered, beyond the power of man to divine. Opening the bottle with skilful hand, he filled the foaming wine into the tall graceful glasses, and looked highly pleased when his mistress drank the sweet beverage almost with eagerness, and then, holding up her empty glass, exclaimed: "Encore, Baumann! and take a glass for yourself and drink our guest's health!"

The old servant did as he was ordered, filled a glass at the sideboard, and then drawing nearer to the table, he said:

"First your health, ma'am! for that I value above all. And may God always let your eyes shine as brightly as they do now! And then your health, sir! And may Heaven bless your coming into this house, so that nothing but peace and happiness may follow it. And that is old Baumann's hearty wish."

Then he slowly emptied his glass, throwing back his head, until his eye looked straight at the full-cheeked angel in the stucco ornaments of the ceiling; and placing the glass again on the sideboard, he went to the window; turning his back to the company, as if he did not wish to interrupt their conversation any further.

The presence of the old servant and the fiery wine had loosed the tongues once more, and made the glances bolder. They chatted, apparently quite at ease, about indifferent things, until Oswald reminded Melitta of her promise to show him to-day the cottage in the forest.

"Did I promise?" asked Melitta. "Well, then I suppose I have to do it, although I am almost sorry for it, for you do not believe in my saint, and are therefore not worthy to enter into my chapel."

"Your saint?"

"The great lady of Milo. I must tell you now also how great my enthusiasm was for the deity. After my return home, the memory of the beautiful statue in the Louvre pursued me so persistently that I did not rest till I had procured an excellent copy from Paris. But as I did not dare to set up my saint here in the house, I had her carried to the cottage in the forest, which thus became a forest-chapel. Whenever visitors come to Berkow, the key is lost; when I am alone I spend days and nights there, especially when the world has annoyed me more than ordinarily; or when I desire to be rather alone, than to have such company as I do wish to have."

"I should not have expected such hypochondriacal caprices in you."

"Why not?"

"Because you look--can look so good and so cheerful."

"And do you not know that cheerful eyes weep most readily?"

"I should not like to see you weep for anything in the world; I believe I should forget how to laugh forever."

And again their glances met and their souls kissed each other.

"Well then, come!"

"We shall have a thunder-storm," said old Baumann, from his window, without turning round.

"We shall be there long before it comes up," replied Melitta, who had already risen. "And if you are not more afraid of a thunder-storm than I am--or are you afraid?"

Oswald smiled.

"Then that shall not keep us. Besides, I do not see a trace of a thunder-storm," she said, in the door of the garden room.

At the same moment a blue shadow swept over the garden, and a few swallows flew past the door, twittering and almost grazing the ground.

"Had we better not go?" said Melitta, who had already crossed the threshold, turning back to Oswald.

"I am not afraid of the storm," replied Oswald, not looking at the sky, but into her eyes.

"And the forest is so beautiful after a storm," said Melitta. "Good-by, Baumann! When the carriage comes from Grenwitz, send it over to the forester. Tell the coachman to report at the cottage."

Baumann looked after the two until Melitta's white dress had disappeared in the bushes.

Seeing him stand there on the threshold of the house, the tall old man with his white beard and scarred face, crossing his strong arms on his broad chest, and thoughtfully looking with his bright, truthful eyes into the distance, one would have imagined a better guardian could not be found. But alas! the house was empty; the beloved mistress had gone away, into the storm-threatening twilight, with the stranger, a man whom she did not know yesterday! And he, the faithful servant, sighed deeply as he went slowly back to the supper-room, with bent head, and then began to clear the table. "The gracious gifts of heaven scarcely touched!" he murmured. "I do not like that. When young people are not hungry, they have mischief brewing. And the wine hardly tasted! There is the bottle more than half full ... and to-morrow it is unfit for the table ... to-morrow." The old man sat down by the table and rested his careworn gray head in his wrinkled hand. "But young people don't think of to-morrow. To-morrow the young gentleman with the soft voice and the large blue eyes is back again at Grenwitz, and who knows where the day after to-morrow finds him? But old Baumann is here--to-morrow and the day after to-morrow, and when the guests are gone the house looks very differently, and when they sweep it they find ... Yes, yes--old Baumann sees what no one else sees, and hears what no one else hears. Ah! Baumann, I wish I were dead! ah, Baumann, why did you carry me that day out of the fire? Now she says; I am not afraid of the thunder-storm! and Baumann! don't send the carriage for us. Hm, hm! I ought not to have consented; I ought to have taken her aside and said to her: Look here, child, so and so; think of this and that! ... But when I see the little one so happy, so cheerful--as in those days when she was riding her pony, a little girl of twelve, and she said: Please, please, dear Baumann, let us have a race now; why, I never could say no to her, and away we went as fast as the creatures would run. She had the same big, brilliant eyes again to-night, and she looked just as rosy and fresh again! Poor, poor child! Yes, yes. You wanted to see if all the windows are properly closed; it is only on account of the thunder-storm!"

Oswald and Melitta hastened joyously, like children coming from school, out of the house through the green avenues to the gate, which led from the garden into the meadow. Behind the sloping meadow lay the forest. Close by the gate, and for some distance along the garden, there was a pond, half bog, and here and there a few willows on the banks; for the waters of the brook were caught here by an old dam and turned around the court-yard, from which they ran merrily down through the village. Even the meadow had become partly boggy, and in spring was often quite under water; now large stones served as a kind of rough bridge at the very wet places.

"The path is rather rustic for city gentlemen," said Melitta, skipping lightly, like a gazelle, from stone to stone; "we children of nature are accustomed to such things. I might have led you the longer way through the park and the forest, but you ought to learn to know also the dark sides of Berkow."

"Well, if this is a dark side of Berkow, I do not wish for the sunny sides," said Oswald, smiling, pausing on one of the stones and taking off his hat to wipe his forehead. For the air was oppressive, the blue shadows had passed, the sun shot fiery rays from the edge of the forest, and they had been walking fast.

"Already tired?" said Melitta, also pausing and taking off her hat, so as to push her full brown hair backwards. "Come, the faster we run the sooner we shall be in the shade in the forest. I will count one, two, three, and he who gets there first----"

"Well?"

"Oh, we'll see. One, two, three--oh!"

Melitta had sprung from the stone upon which she stood on a lower one, and fell, with a cry of pain, on her knee. In a moment Oswald was by her side.

"Great God! What is the matter?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing! I have sprained my foot a little in jumping down; it will soon be over."

She rested on Oswald's arm, pale, and pressing her lower lip between her teeth to control her pain. But her color returned as she looked up at Oswald.

"Do not trouble yourself," she said--and her voice sounded sweeter than ever. "You have won the wager. Well! now I can walk again."

She was about to withdraw her arm from Oswald's arm, but he was not willing to let his captive escape so easily.

"You cannot walk without support, and will you not grant me the pleasure to render you this slight service?"

"I am only afraid the way is unpleasant enough to you; the sun is so burning. Oh!"

A false step made Melitta sink down once more.

"We shall have to stop here," she said.

"I will carry you the few steps to the wood. There you can at least rest in the shade."

Melitta smiled. "I am not as light as a doll."

"And I am not as weak as a girl of ten," answered Oswald, who seized Melitta around the waist, and lifting her up carried her safely, as the mother carries her child, on the last stones up to the edge of the forest, where the broad branches of the beeches gave shade and coolness. There he let her glide gently from his arms on the thick moss and remained standing before her. Melitta had no longer resisted as soon as the young man had boldly lifted her up; she felt very quickly that he was strong enough to carry her, and she thought it folly not to make the burden as easy as possible to him by clinging closely to his arms.

"How strong you are!" she said, now looking up at him with admiration.

Oswald's heart beat high, and his bosom rose, more from inner excitement than from the exertion. He still felt the elastic form which he had pressed in his arms, the soft hair playing around his face, and the sweet breath that had fallen upon his brow.

"Under such circumstances it would be difficult not to be strong," he said.

"But confess, it has tired you? Come and sit down here; there is room for more than two on this moss sofa."

Oswald sank down into the soft moss by the side of Melitta, who was leaning against the trunk of a beech-tree; he rested his head on his arm and looked thoughtfully in her cheerful face. Was the dream near the pond about to be fulfilled? Is the dear face about to bend down and to kiss him, as it did in the dream? Oswald was overcome by the strange feeling as if he had gone through all this once before; as if he knew the place from of old, the tall dark forest, from which came the pecking of a woodpecker, the meadow before him, with the red evening lights touching up the tall grass, the silent garden yonder, and from the green foliage the gray chÂteau of Melitta rising on high. He felt as if he had seen Melitta often in former years, as a boy, when he had been deep in a beautiful fairy tale, till at last the sweet princess stood bodily before him. And Melitta also must have felt something like it, for quite at her ease, as if he had been her brother or her husband, she took his hat off and pressed her delicate fragrant handkerchief repeatedly on his warm brow and on his blue dreamy eyes.

Oswald seized the white hand and pressed it to his lips.

"Your hand I must return, but the handkerchief I can really not give you back," he said.

"Then keep it as a souvenir of this hour. But now let us go on. It is quite a distance yet to the forest chapel, and the sky looks really threatening now."

Melitta leaned on Oswald's arm as they followed the narrow path, which led first under beeches, and then through a young plantation on one side and tall old pine-trees on the other side, deeper into the forest. The sun poured its fiery red rays over the low branches of the tall trees; a little bird was pouring out soft plaintive melodies, as if it were taking leave of the sun and of life itself. Then the purple glow became extinct on high; the little bird was silent, and shade and silence surrounded the loving couple. But the shades became darker and more threatening, and the silence was strangely broken by the groaning and creaking of the pine-trees, which stretched and strained their powerful limbs as if they wanted to try their strength to defy the storm that was rising over the forest. And now it began to whisper and to whistle mysteriously in the bushes; dry leaves flew up and drifted along, as if in mad anxiety, before the whirlwind, which beat down the green waves on high, twisting the crowns of the beech-trees as in a wild dance, bending low the tall tops of the pine-trees and starting the whole forest to its remotest depths from its pleasant repose. The pale gleam of lightning shot across the sky, and big warm drops began to fall through the leaves.

Melitta had come up close to Oswald, whose heart was exulting in the storm. Pressing the beloved one with one arm to his side, he stretched out the other one, as in defiance to the tempest-torn sky. "Go on, go on," he murmured through his firmly closed teeth; "I am not afraid of thee.... How, is your courage already exhausted? Oh! it is so beautiful in the stormy, thundering forest!"

Melitta did not say a word; without raising her eyes from the ground, she hurried forward faster and faster, until the forest opened upon a large clearing; and there lay before them the forest chapel, just at the moment brilliantly illumined by the red flashes of lightning. A few steps more and they were under the projecting roof of the cottage. It was built in the style of Swiss houses, and a jewel of a cottage. Melitta quickly walked up the steps which led to the low veranda, took a small key from a pocket in her dress, unlocked the lock, but instead of opening the door she leaned trembling against the door-frame. She was pale; her strength seemed to be gone; she pressed her hand on her heart. Thus she stood when Oswald turned his eyes from the steaming meadow--a sight which always filled him with a peculiar kind of delight--to her again.

"Great God! what is the matter? Are you unwell?"

"Oh! nothing, nothing!" she said, gathering herself up at the first sound of his voice. "I have run too fast; now it is better already. Come in!"

She opened the door and Oswald entered. But he drew back startled when he saw in the mystic twilight within a tall white figure, which seemed to float down from out of the wall.

"What is that?" he exclaimed, in his first surprise.

"What?" said Melitta, who was opening the windows to let the fresh air into the hot room, full of the fragrance of flowers.

"The Venus of Milo!" cried Oswald, and a voluptuous shudder passed over him.

"My saint! Did I not tell you? Well, how do you like the chapel?"

It was not a very large but a very high room; on the right and on the left a window looking out upon the veranda; opposite the door, in a niche and upon a low pedestal, the image of the goddess. A few comfortable garden-chairs, a chaise longue, a table covered with books, papers, drawing material, a half-finished embroidery, riding-whip and gloves, in picturesque disorder--this was the whole, simple but suitable, furniture of the room.

"Did you get very wet?" asked Melitta, throwing her hat on the table, without waiting for an answer to her first question. And then:

"Go away from the window; you will take cold. Come here, or rather, sit dawn on the lounge and rest yourself."

And again:

"If I only could find something for you! But--to be sure I can make tea for you. Where are the tea-things, I wonder? Here--no, there, in the cupboard."

All this she said hurriedly, as if pressed by an inner painful restlessness, while she was walking up and down in the room with quick, unequal steps.

Oswald took her hand.

"First of all, I pray, take care of yourself; that little rain will not hurt me, I assure you. Your dress is damp, and your thin boots are not made for the wet grass on the meadow."

"Oh, as for me, I am easily helped. I have everything I need in the next room."

"The next room!"

"Yes! Did I not tell you that I often spend a night here? That door leads into my dressing-room."

"Then go at once and change your dress."

Melitta drew her hand from the young man's hand, and went without saying a word; she disappeared through a door close by the statue, which Oswald had not noticed before. He threw himself into one of the arm-chairs, and rested his head on his hand; then he started up again, leaned against the window, and stared with troubled eyes into the rain and storm; then he walked hastily up and down in the room; at last he threw himself down before the pedestal of the goddess and cooled his hot brow against the marble feet.

The rustling of a dress close by him aroused him from his feverish dream.

"Melitta!" he cried, looking up at her with tears of happiness in his eyes. "Melitta!"

She bent down to him and kissed him softly on the forehead; then she rushed away, threw herself into an arm-chair, and sobbed as if her heart were breaking.

Oswald knelt down before her; he seized her knees; he pressed his glowing face on her dress; he kissed her dress, her hands. "Melitta! sweet one, dear one, don't cry! How can you cry when you make me so inexpressibly happy? Your tears kill me, Melitta! Dear, dearest Melitta! Take my heart's blood, drop by drop. Are not my blood, my life, my soul, all your own? Melitta, I shall never cease to thank you for this moment; do you hear, Melitta, never, never, by----"

"For God's sake! do not swear," cried Melitta, starting up and placing her hand on his mouth. Then she took his head and kissed him passionately on brow and eyes and lips.

And again she started up and walked with rapid steps up and down the room. "Oh! my God, my God!" she cried, wringing her hands. She hastened towards the door, as if she wished to flee, but she broke down before she reached it. Oswald caught her in his arms and carried her to the sofa. He covered her cold hands, her trembling lips, with glowing kisses; a cry of joy arose from his breast when the rigid form at last began to move once more.

She raised herself partly, and fixing her eyes upon him with an expression of ineffable love, she said in a low voice, low yet firm, as when a patient asks his physician whether it will end in life or death----

"Oswald, listen to me! Do you love me now, at this moment, as you think you can love a woman upon earth?"

"Yes, Melitta!"

"Well, then, Oswald, I love you, now and forever!"

The storm had passed; the refreshed, fragrant forest was silent again and at rest, and over the forest rose brightly from the purple evening sky the beautiful star of Venus.