"Thanks, I shall go alone."
"On no account!" cried Hugo, almost excitedly. "You are much agitated, almost fainting; it would be unpardonable to leave you alone in this state."
"You are not responsible for what becomes of me," said Ella, with uncontrolled bitterness, "and to others--it does not matter. Let me drive home alone, Hugo, I beseech you."
Her eyes looked at him entreatingly through their veil of tears. The Captain did not say another word; he shut the door obediently, and stepped back; but he watched the carriage as it rolled away until it was out of sight.
It was long past midnight when Reinhold returned, and, without entering his house, he went at once to his garden room. The house and outbuildings lay still and dark; nothing was moving around, all who lived and worked here were accustomed to be occupied in the daytime, and required the night for undisturbed repose. It was fortunate that the garden-house lay so distant and isolated, otherwise his companions and neighbours would have been much less patient with the young composer, who could not refrain, however late he might return home, from always seeking his piano, and often morning's dawn surprised him at his musical phantasies.
It was a quiet, moonlight, but sharp raw northern spring night. In the dawning light, the walls and gables which enclosed the garden looked even more gloomy and prison-like than by day; the canal appeared darker in the pale moon's rays, which trembled over it, and the bare leafless trees and shrubs seemed to tremble and shudder in the cold night wind, which passed mercilessly over them. It was already April, and yet the first buds were hardly to be seen. "This miserable spring, with its tardy growth and bloom, its dreary rainy days and cold winds!" Reinhold had heard these words spoken a few hours since, and then such a glowing description followed of endless spring, which blossoms forth as by magic in the gardens of the south, those sunny days, with ever blue sky, and the thousandfold glorious colours of the earth; the moonlight nights full of orange perfume and notes of song. The young man must indeed have head and heart still full of this picture; he looked more contemptuously than usual on the poor bare surroundings, and impatiently pushed aside a branch of elderberry whose newly opening brown buds touched his forehead. He had no more feeling for the gifts of this miserable spring, and no more pleasure in growing and living as miserably as these blossoms, ever fighting with frost and wind. Out into freedom, that was the only thought which now filled his mind.
Reinhold opened the door of the garden room and started back with sudden alarm. A few seconds elapsed before he recognised his wife in the figure leaning against the piano standing out clearly in the moonlight as it fell through the window.
"Is it you, Ella?" he cried at last, entering quickly. "What is it? What has happened?"
She made a movement of denial. "Nothing, I was only waiting for you."
"Here? and at this hour?" asked Reinhold, extremely distantly. "What has entered your head?"