'Good heavens, how can such things come into your mind?' cried Hedwig, half frightened, half offended. 'How can you imagine that I ever gave them a thought?'

'I do not, I do not,' said Edmund, drawing a deep breath. 'And therefore I hold fast to that which is mine, mine alone, and will maintain it in the face of all. In your love, at least, I may believe. That, at least, is no lie. If I were to be deceived here, if I must doubt and despair of you--then the sooner I make an end of it, the better.'

'Edmund, this wild talk of yours distracts me,' cried Hedwig, starting back, scared by his vehemence. 'You are ill, you must be ill, or you would not use such language.'

This anxious cry brought Edmund to his senses. He made a great effort to regain composure, and even succeeded in forcing a smile as he replied:

'Why, are you beginning that tale? A few minutes ago my mother was lecturing me, saying I was excited and overwrought. And in fact it is nothing more than that. I am nervous and unstrung, but the fit will pass. Everything comes to an end, you know, sooner or later. Do not be anxious, Hedwig. Now I must go and see if Everard has got all ready for my expected guests. I forgot to give him any special orders. Excuse me for ten minutes, will you? I shall be with you again immediately.'

He released the girl from his arms and left her, once more breaking off abruptly, fleeing, as it were, from further explanation or discussion. It was impossible to solve the enigma. The Countess and Edmund were alike impenetrable.

Hedwig returned to her former place, and sat, absorbed in troubled meditation, resting her head on her hand. Edmund was concealing something from her, yet his love for her had suffered no change or diminution. It needed not the Countess's words to assure her of this; her own feelings told her the fact far more convincingly. His affection seemed indeed to have gained in intensity. She was more to him now than in former days, when his mother stood so prominently in the foreground; but the girl involuntarily trembled at meeting an outburst of fervid passion there, where she had been wont to look only for gay and sportive tenderness. How strange, how fitted to inspire uneasiness had been Edmund's manner again to-day! Why did he so vehemently demand an assurance that her love was given to him, to him personally? And why would he 'make an end of it,' were he to be deceived in this belief?

Hedwig felt that she should have thrown herself on her lover's breast, and forced from him a frank and open confession.

Obstinately as he might withhold his confidence from her, he would surely have given way, if she had prayed him with all the eagerness and earnestness of heartfelt love--but this she could not bring herself to do. Something like a secret consciousness of guilt restrained her from using her full power. Yet she had valiantly fought against the dreams which constantly brought before her another figure, the figure of one who now was far away, and whom she would probably never see again.

Oswald von Ettersberg since his departure had been completely lost sight of. He might almost have vanished into space. The Countess never voluntarily alluded to her nephew, and to some inquiries of Rüstow's she had merely replied curtly and coldly that she believed he was well, and satisfied with his new mode of life, but that he rarely communicated with his relations. She evidently desired to avoid the subject, and it was accordingly not again broached. The fact that Edmund never mentioned the name of his cousin, from whom he had hitherto been inseparable, that any allusion to the absent one appeared unpalatable to him as to his mother, was just one of the many eccentricities which now marked his behaviour. They had probably had some fresh quarrel shortly before Oswald's departure, and it seemed that the rupture between the cousins and old allies was this time complete.