"Why is it? why is it?" shrieked Sonnenkamp through the park. No reply came from without; perhaps one came from within, for he pressed both hands, doubled up, against his breast.
He came into the orchard. There stood the trees, whose branches he had shaped according to his pleasure; they stood in full blossom, and now, in the first morning beam, the blossoms were falling down like a low rustling rain upon the ground, that looked white as if covered with flakes of snow.
The lighter the morning became, the more confident did Sonnenkamp feel that Roland was floating there a corpse in the river, which was now of a reddish purple, a stream of blood; the far-extending water was nothing but blood! He uttered a deep groan, and stretched out his hand, as if he must grasp and throttle something. He seized hold of a tree and shook it, and shook it again and again, so that there was scarcely a blossom left upon it; he stood there covered all over with the petals. And now he broke out into a scornful laugh.
"Life shall not vanquish me! Nothing! Not even thou! Roland, where art thou?"
At this instant he saw a white form, with a strange head-covering, glide through the orchard, and vanish behind the trees. What is that? He rubbed his eyes. Was that a mere fancy, or was it a reality?
He went after the apparition.
"Stop," he cried, "there are steel-traps there, there's a spring-gun there!" A woman's voice uttered a lamentable, shriek. Sonnenkamp went up to her, and Fräulein Milch stood before him. "What do you want here? What's the matter?"
"I wanted the Herr Major."
"He is still asleep."
"I may also tell you," Fräulein Milch began, composing herself, "it leaves me no rest."