"No, indeed," I answered.
"Let us go up there," she said.
Upon what was nearly the highest part of the promontory on which we were, were the ruins of a castle, overgrown with thick bushes. But a single massive tower, almost entirely covered with ivy, had defied the power of the sea and of time. These were the ruins of the Zehrenburg, to which Arthur had pointed yesterday, as we passed on the steamer; the same tower on which I was to fix my gaze as I renounced in his favor all pretensions to Emilie Heckepfennig. This I had passionately refused to do--yesterday: what was Emilie Heckepfennig to me to-day?
The beautiful girl had taken her seat upon a mossy stone, and looked fixedly into the distance. I stood beside her, leaning against the old tower, and looked fixedly into her face.
"All that, once was ours," she said, slowly sweeping her hand round the horizon; "and this, is all that remains."
She rose hastily, and began to descend a narrow path which led, through broom and heather, from the heights down to the forest. I followed. We came to the beech-wood again, and back to the tarn, where her book and guitar still lay upon the bank. I was very proud when she gave me both to carry, saying at the same time that the guitar had been her mother's, and that she had never trusted it to any one before; but now I should always carry this, her greatest treasure, for her, and she would teach me to play and to sing, if I stayed with them. Or perhaps I did not mean to stay with them?
I said that I could not tell, but I hoped so; and the thought of going away fell heavy upon my heart.
We had now reached the castle. "Give me the guitar," she said, "but keep the book: I know it by heart. Have you had breakfast? No? Poor, poor George! it is lucky that no dragon met us; you would have been hardly able to stand upon your feet."
A side-door, that I had not previously noticed, led to that part of the ground-floor inhabited by the father and daughter. Constance called an old female servant, and directed her to prepare me some breakfast, and then she left me, after giving me her hand, with that melancholy transient smile which I had already noted on her beautiful lips.