"I shall remain!" declared Jane with her usual positiveness. "But I will not allow you to expose yourself longer to this 'romantic draught.' You will of course direct your walk to M. and we shall meet upon our return."
The hint was plain enough, and Atkins very readily accepted it. He thought it inexpressibly dull up here, and gladly availed himself of any excuse to withdraw.
"I have an idea that I shall have to return to America alone," he muttered to himself, as he took a by-path leading directly down into the valley. "And besides, I am to have the extraordinary pleasure of sending Mr. Forest's whole fortune across the ocean. The fortune Henry Alison made the object of all his energies and calculations, and which is now to fall into the lap of this German professor who was stupid enough to care nothing at all about it, and who would have married unhesitatingly upon his professor's salary! And he will have a brilliant career in the world--there is no doubt of that. They are now lauding him as the future poet, and there must be something in the uproar his verses cause. If a million stands behind them, and a wife like Jane sits near him--all this will urge him on more surely and speedily to the wished for goal. Our deceased Mrs. Forest would have been triumphant; but I'd like to know what Mr. Forest would say at seeing his riches exclusively in German hands and subserving German interests. I believe he would"--here Mr. Atkins bethought himself, and concluded with this emphatic ejaculation--"I believe he would say amen to it!"
Jane had remained behind alone. She drew a deep breath as if relieved of a heavy restraint, and sat down again in the old place. The bright spring radiance fell around the gray, ancient ruins of the castle, while above and beneath them, throughout all the landscape, reigned a thousand-fold life of fragrance and blossoming. The ivy again wove its green meshes around the dusky stone, and let its wavy tendrils flutter far out over the abyss. At her feet, lay a grassy expanse bathed in the sun's golden lustre, while far beyond flashed and shimmered the dear home river, as if only hours had passed since that day when they two had sat here; as if autumn and winter, with all their tears and conflicts, with their melancholy symbols of mourning, had been only an evil, oppressive dream.
And, as at that time, the gravel now creaked under advancing footsteps. Could Atkins have come back? Impossible! This was not his calm, deliberate tread. It came nearer; a shadow fell upon the sunny space before her; Jane sprang up, brow and cheeks suffused with a treacherous glow, trembling, incapable even of a cry of surprise. Walter Fernow stood before her!
In eager haste he had climbed the hill, but this time, he did not arrive breathless and exhausted, as once from his most quiet walks; such exertion was now sport to him, and it must have been something quite other than fatigue, which at this moment stopped his breath and sent that deep flush to his face. He would fain hasten to Jane's side, but he paused suddenly and gazed silently on the ground; it seemed as if with the old student's dress which he had to-day for the first time resumed, the old timidity had returned.
"Professor Fernow--you here?"
A shadow of painful disappointment passed over Walter's face; perhaps he had expected a different greeting. The deep flush vanished and the old melancholy expression again darkened his features. Jane had meantime in a measure recovered her self-control, although she could not overcome the agitation that thrilled her frame and gave a treacherous vibration to her voice. "I--we heard that you were not with your regiment; my uncle and Doctor Behrend at least declared that you were not," she said.
"I did not come with my comrades; I arrived an hour ago. Doctor Stephen and his wife were not at home, and I was not in the mood to enter at once into the festivities. I undertook this walk; it accidentally led me here--"
His face betrayed the untruth! He had incidentally heard at the house that Jane was not at the festival, and it was not without good reasons that he had undertaken this walk so immediately after his arrival. It had perhaps been more presentiment than accident which had led him here. Jane might have felt this, the flush upon her face deepened, and the dark lashes sank slowly, while her trembling hands sought a point of support in the wall. Walter hesitatingly approached.