"Let us turn back. The skies are more threatening, and we can take the mountain-road home."
"As you please."
They turned their horses into another road, and again complete silence ensued. Erna was only too conscious that she had betrayed herself, but she could have borne the wildest outburst of jealousy from her betrothed rather than this gloomy silence, which was terrible. She did not indeed fear for herself, but she saw that an explanation was inevitable so soon as they should reach the house.
Her expectations were, however, disappointed, for at the door of the villa, after Ernst had helped her to dismount, he got on his horse again.
"You are going?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes. I need the open air this afternoon."
"Do not go, Ernst. I wanted to ask you----"
"Good-bye!" he interrupted her, curtly; and before she could make any further attempt to detain him he was gone, leaving her a prey to a vague anxiety in her ignorance of his intentions.
When Waltenberg reached the forest he checked his horse's speed and rode on slowly beneath the dark pines, through the tops of which the wind was whistling. He needed no further explanation; he knew everything now,--everything! But in the midst of the tempest raging within him he was aware of a savage satisfaction: the phantom which had tortured him for so long had finally taken on flesh and blood. Now he could assail and destroy it!