During this conversation they had drawn near the balustrade. The storm was really over, and the sluices of heaven seemed to have exhausted themselves at last, but the air still hung damp and laden with rain. The wet vines, torn and disordered by the storm, still fluttered about, and drops of rain ran down from the saint's picture in the badly sheltered niche in the wall. Below rolled the sea, still wildly disturbed; the usually so quiet sapphire blue mirror was only a wild chaos of iron-grey currents and white foaming crests of waves, which broke hissing and surging on the shore. But the mist, which until now had enveloped the whole country in an impenetrable veil, commenced to melt at last, and land-marks came out distinctly already; only around the higher points did it still cling and hang, while in the west a clearer gleam of light began to struggle with the disappearing clouds.
"How did you recognise my little Reinhold?" asked Ella suddenly, in quite an altered tone. "You did not see him at your last visit, and when you left H---- he had barely passed his first year of life."
Hugo leant down to the child, and lifted up its little head.
"How I recognised him?" replied he smiling; "by his eyes. He has yours, Ella, and they are not so easily mistaken, even if they look out of another's face. I should know them amongst hundreds."
His tone had almost a passionate warmth. The young wife drew slightly aside.
"Since when have you begun to pay me compliments, Hugo?"
"Are compliments so unusual to you, Ella?"
"From your lips, certainly."
"Yes, certainly. I dare not venture upon what you allow to every one else," said Captain Almbach, with a slight accent of bitterness. "The attempt has once already obtained me the name of 'adventurer.'"
"It seems as if you could never forget that word," said Ella, half smiling.