It was three days after the events of that night.

Early in the morning it had been raining. Now in the later forenoon the sun was peeping at times through the heavy clouds, which rolled slowly toward the east, driven by a damp west wind.

In the graveyard at Fashwitz, in the avenue of linden-trees which leads from one end to the other, dividing the graves of the nobles from the graves of the common people, two persons were walking up and down in earnest conversation. At one of the gates of the graveyard which opened immediately upon the high-road, an elegant carriage and two was standing. Near by, a groom was leading two beautiful saddled horses by the bridle. Coachman and groom conversed in subdued tones, as if they did not wish to disturb the meditations of the old man with the long snow-white moustache, who sat on one of the curbstones of the gate, and looking from time to time, from under his heavy, overhanging brows, at the two persons inside.

They were Melitta and Oldenburg. Melitta was not in mourning, but her sweet, fair face had an expression of melancholy which it had never worn before. Even the smile with which she replied to many a remark of her companion was not the old joyous smile; it resembled the glimpses of the sun through the dismal, melancholy clouds.

"And you mean really to go?" she asked, breaking a pause which had occurred in their conversation.

"I rode over to Berkow to pay my farewell visit and to ask if you had any commands for me. You see that it was not an idle ceremony, or I would not have followed you here to the graveyard, although graves and graveyards, you know, are not the places I love particularly to frequent."

"And where are you going now?"

"I do not know yet. What can I do here? As I cannot live for her for whom alone I care to live, and as our miserable age has no great purpose to which a man may devote his life, I mean to go, like another Peter Schlemihl, in search of my own shadow. I only fear I shall never find it, or, if I do find it, it will leave me again at once, like the last time."

"Have you never tried to find the Brown Countess?"

"No. It would have been of no avail. Wandering gypsies leave no traces behind them; they are like ships sailing through the water. If I should not return, Melitta, you must send for your bust, which I ordered from young Goldoni in Rome. It is in my study at Cona; or would you like to have it at once?"

"No," said Melitta, "you had better keep it. Your unbounded kindness deserves a better reward than cold marble."

"Or marble coldness?" asked Oldenburg, smiling.

"That I do not give you, Oldenburg," said Melitta, with warmth; "really not. I love you as one would love a brother who is a few years older, who stands somewhat in the place of a father, and to whom one looks up with cheerful respect and gratitude. It is our fate, that you must needs love me in a different way, and that I cannot love you in any other way."

"It is our fate, indeed, Melitta, and now let us say nothing more about it. Against fate nothing can be done. We can only bow our head, and accept the laurel wreath or the death-blow in silence. I might have learnt that in these last days, if I had not known it before. And now, Melitta, since you yourself have called me a brother, let me speak to you like a brother. May I?"

"Yes," said Melitta, who had lowered her head at these last words of Oldenburg's, after a short pause, and in a low voice.

"Overcome your love for Oswald! I cannot advise you to pull out the arrow by one single effort, because I fear the wound might bleed till you die; but do not resist the effect of time, which is almost as powerful as almighty Fate. After a few weeks, or a few months, you will think more calmly about it; will you promise me, like a good sister, not to look upon these calmer and wiser thoughts as a sin against your love?"

"Yes."

"For, Melitta, he is lost to you, even if he should overcome this last passion of his. His mad hunt after an Ideal, which he cannot find anywhere upon earth, because it only lives in his imagination, will lead him to another and another love. He will ever think: This is what you have been looking for in vain; and he will ever discover the illusion, until he will take at last, in his bitterest disappointment, a step which will relieve him of all further care for this wretched world. These last days have brought him much nearer to this unavoidable end."

"How are matters at Grenwitz?"

"Felix is out of danger, although at first he was given up. But he will, in all probability, be an invalid for life--a heavy punishment for one who has so long 'enjoyed the sweetness of flowers and broken every flower.' Oswald's ball missed its aim only by a hair's breadth. Felix owes his life to Bruno's death. Oswald did not say a word during the whole duel; his face remained unchanged, only when Felix fell a kind of smile passed over his features; he looked the very image of perfect composure, and only the close observer could have noticed that it was the snow on a volcano, and that from time to time a feverish tremor ran through his limbs. He bore himself in the whole affair with consummate tact, and even the host of adversaries had to acknowledge that Cloten actually said, in his admiration, he was very sorry the man was not born noble."

"And Helen?"

"Helen left, a few hours after the duel, with her father for Grunwald. I believe they are going to keep the girl there for a time, in a kind of honorable exile, till they have brought about a reconciliation with her mother. In the mean time the good woman is simply beside herself, and would have moved heaven and earth, and the police besides, to destroy Oswald, if Cloten and others had not told her that Felix had given the first provocation, and that a duel was simply unavoidable."

"And--Oswald?"

"I thought he had written to you?"

"Yes, but nothing about his plans for the future."

"Nor do I know anything about them. We have not exchanged three words with each other. I only know that he has been staying with Doctor Braun in town, to await what would come of the duel. I am glad he has chosen so well. His new friend, Braun, seems to be a man of as much character and cleverness as of goodness of heart. God grant that he may be a wiser Mentor for our Telemachus than I have been able to be, with the best will in the world. But now I must go, Melitta. Else my Almansor will beat his hoofs to powder. Have you anything more to do here?"

"No," said Melitta, "we can go."

"Will you often come to this place?"

"Hardly. I only wished to see if my orders had been attended to. You know, best of all, that the deceased, whom I came to see, has not been alive for me for long years, and, properly speaking, never."

"Then let us go, Melitta."

The baron took the arm of the young widow, and led her down the avenue. They did not say another word. Old Baumann opened the door of the carriage. Oldenburg helped Melitta in and stood a moment, hat in hand, by the open carriage. When the horses were about to start, Melitta gave him her hand; he pressed it to his lips. He remained motionless for a few moments, and looked after the carriage as it rolled away. Then he beckoned to his groom, mounted Almansor, and rode off at full speed in the opposite direction.

Two men had been watching this last scene, who had come into the graveyard at the very moment when Melitta and Oldenburg left through the gate opposite. They had placed a couple of wreaths on a new grave near the gate, on the side of the nobles. They were Oswald and Doctor Braun; both in travelling costume. They stood, arm in arm, on the steps of the church, and thus witnessed the parting scene between Oldenburg and Melitta. When the baron kissed Melitta's hand, an ironical smile passed over Oswald's pale, sunken face.

"Let us make haste to get away from here," he said. "I feel as if the ground were burning under my feet."

"I am ready," said the doctor. "If you had followed my advice you would have left here long ago, and if you follow my advice now, you will never return here. Our journey will give you back to yourself. You have lost much, but nothing that cannot be regained. You have despised reason and science, man's highest power, and yet you can never hope for happiness except by such help, for,--you recollect the words of your favorite poet:

'----what Amor has taken from us
Apollo only can restore:
Peace, happiness, and harmony,
And pure and powerful aspirations--'