Gabrielle stood on the terrace which fronted the lake. Yes, that was she, that slender figure with fair hair, clad in a light summer dress. The fresh sweet face had lost nothing of its fascinating charm, but the charm itself was changed. The old happy buoyancy, the radiant brightness had vanished, gone with the saucy, childish merriment which once laughed in those sunny brown eyes--but, in lieu of them, the face had gained the one thing which had been wanting to it: intensity of expression. Whether it lay in the sorrowful lines about her mouth, which not even a smile could altogether chase away, or in the shadow hiding in those deep dark eyes--small matter, it was there, and the soul, which spoke in it, idealised, perfected her whole being.
Leaning slightly forward against the balustrade, Gabrielle gazed out at the landscape, dreamily absorbed in thought. She turned half impatiently, as a servant appeared, and presented a card.
Hardly had she glanced at it when she grew very pale, and the card trembled in her hands.
"The gentleman begs that he may be allowed to see the Baroness on an urgent matter of business," reported the servant.
"Show the gentleman in," she answered, and left the terrace to receive her visitor.
In another minute Dr. Brunnow entered the drawing-room.
For a few seconds the two stood silently face to face. They met now for the first time, and yet each knew as much of the other as if they had been intimately acquainted for years. The bent, elderly man and the blooming young maiden, strangers to each other personally, were united by one common tie; a name, a dead man's name, formed an invisible link between them.
The Doctor bowed, and stepped nearer. Gabrielle involuntarily shrank from him. He saw it, and stopped.
"You hardly expected that I should ever approach you, Fräulein von Harder," he began. "I do so at the risk of being repulsed. My name must, I know, have an ominous sound in your ears."
Gabrielle stood before him, by a great effort compelling herself to be calm. The colour had not yet returned to her cheeks, and her voice shook audibly as she replied: