For answer he lifted her lightly in his arms and strode through the foaming water. How easily he seemed to do it, and yet the light burden was almost too much for him. His heart throbbed so that he thought she must hear it; his cheeks flushed crimson, and he almost staggered beneath her light weight, when Hilda shrank from the dashing water and leaned more closely upon his shoulder.
And yet he could have wished to bear her thus in his arms for hours. With a sigh he released her upon the opposite bank of the stream, and she thanked him, and laughing at his thoroughly drenched condition, passed on through the forest, while he stilled the wild throbbing of his heart and the rushing of the blood in his veins as best he might.
How variable and whimsical he must seem to Hilda! he thought. Now he would adopt a cold tone towards her, and now indulge in outbursts of the wildest merriment, striving with a jest to deaden the agitation of his soul. He saw that these jests were not pleasing to Hilda; she grew very grave when he was recklessly gay; he would not distress her, and so restrained himself and compelled himself to talk earnestly and quietly. For this she rewarded him with eager interest and ready sympathy.
He would have held himself aloof from her, but that was impossible; she regarded him not as a stranger, but as her cousin Leo's dearest friend, of whom he had talked so much and so often that she felt thoroughly at home and at her ease in his society, and she treated him with a frank familiarity that was irresistibly attractive to him, and the influence of which he could not resist.
Often, as they walked fearlessly along the brink of frightful abysses, he remembered his despairing desire to end a life that could offer him no future save pain and anguish. As he talked gayly with Hilda such thoughts would assail him; he would pause for an instant and gaze with longing into the blue depths. Why should he live on? Eva and Leo were reconciled. All that remained for him to do was to break the tie between Eva and Bertram and his work in the world would be at an end. But as he wandered on at Hilda's side the spell that her presence threw around him would inevitably exert its power; gloomy thoughts would be banished, and the love of life and all that makes life fair would stir strongly again within him, although he deceived himself into the belief that his only desire was to live until Leo's happiness should be secured and Dr. Putzer be sufficiently recovered to tell him all that he feared to learn.
Convinced that after at most a few more days he should be separated from Hilda forever, he at last resigned himself utterly to the enchantment of her presence, unaware of how her constant society fed and increased the love which he felt for her. Consequently he grew calmer; the feverish excitement which drove him to indulge in extravagant merriment subsided: he took cheerful part in the general conversation; and when they rested after some long ascent at the wished-for point of view, he could thoroughly enjoy both the enthusiasm of the others and the glories of the landscape. Still, when at the end of the day the entire party would sit discussing their expedition, upon the balcony, Paul was apt to fall into a gloomy revery from which it needed a word from Hilda to rouse him. Thus the days and weeks passed at Tausens with very little change, and no one divined what was going on in the mind of him to whom all turned for enjoyment and sympathy.
One person however suspected that Delmar was by no means so careless as he seemed. Guido von Bertram watched him keenly whenever he had an opportunity, with many a misgiving that a storm was gathering above his head. When it would break he could not tell, and he racked his brains for some means whereby he might escape it.
The ex-lieutenant played but a sorry part in Tausens. When he returned from his mountain-expedition, on the day of Herwarth's betrothal, he found the entire party assembled upon the balcony, for Leo and Hilda had despatched a messenger to the castle to inform Herr von Heydeck that they should not return until late in the evening.
Uncle Balthasar had brewed a bowl of punch in honour of the occasion, and the three gentlemen from Tausens had taken part in the festivity. Uncle Balthasar was in an ecstasy; he repeatedly proposed the health of the betrothed couple, and made them a short congratulatory speech in his comical patois. His only disappointment was that 'dear Guido' was not yet returned; and when 'dear Guido' did actually make his appearance upon the balcony, the old man's happiness reached its climax; he immediately filled him a glass of punch and required that he should drink the health of the betrothed couple.
The surprising intelligence deprived Bertram for an instant of his self-possession, and his face showed the dismay that he felt. In fact, there was reason for it. Herwarth, Leo's most intimate friend, betrothed to Aline, Eva's friend and confidante! What results might not ensue! Probably a reconciliation between Eva and Leo. True enough, there was his dreaded enemy beside his betrothed, and the two were conversing as easily and pleasantly as if there had never been the slightest misunderstanding between them. At the moment Leo was standing with his hand on the back of Eva's chair; he bent above her and said something in a low tone of voice. And she? She looked up at him with a gentle smile, so lost in what he was saying that she never heard Uncle Balthasar's joyous exclamation, "Here is our dear Guido!" and did not know that her betrothed was looking on while she conversed familiarly with his mortal enemy.