Even now in daylight it seemed to breathe fog and twilight, and when night should descend the will-o'-the-wisp probably commenced here also its ghostly play.
At the horizon, where in clear weather the summits of the mountains were visible, towered now a dark bank of clouds. As yet in the distance, its stifling breath rested already over the Wald, and at times a dull light flashed from it.
Adelaide had not answered Hartmut's question. She gazed out over the country to avoid looking into the face of the man who stood before her, but she felt the dark, passionate look which rested upon her face, as she had always felt it in the last weeks, as soon as Rojanow was in her presence.
"You are going away to-morrow, gracious lady," he commenced again. "Who knows when you will return and when I shall see you again? May not I beg for your opinion? May I not ask if my work has found grace in the eyes of--Ada?"
Her name again upon his lips; again that soft, veiled, yet passionate, tone which she feared, and yet to which she listened as to enchanting music!
Adelaide felt that here she was a prisoner; there was no chance for flight. She had to look the danger full in the face.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Adelaide von Wallmoden turned slowly toward her questioner, and her features betrayed that she was determined to end the hard struggle the struggle with her own self.
"You play strangely with this name, Herr Rojanow," she said emphatically and proudly. "It stood over the poem which was put into my possession in a mysterious manner last week, written in a strange hand, without signature----"
"And which you read, nevertheless," he interrupted triumphantly.