Amid the indescribable confusion, the calling, shouting, hurrying up and down of so many persons, I had found it impossible to make sure whether really all, as they said, were together; but I knew that I had not seen her whom alone I was looking for, nor had I seen Fräulein Duff. I had imagined for some reason--perhaps I had heard some one say it--that both ladies were in the fourth carriage, which was behind the others, and reported to be safe; but as the company set out, with the lanterns in front, this fourth carriage came up.
It was the commerzienrath's great family carriage. I sprang to it and looked in. There was a pile of cloaks and shawls which had been left behind in the hurry, and Fräulein Duff, leaning back in the corner, and looking at me, who was half wild with anxiety, with eyes from which extreme terror had banished all expression. In vain did I try to get from her where she had left Hermine. She only muttered, as if delirious, "Seek faithfully and thou shalt find," and then broke into hysterical weeping.
Now Anthony, who had in the meantime been adjusting the traces, told me that the young lady had sprung from the carriage not ten minutes before, just as the lanterns came near. He did not know why, for the young lady had not been nearly so much frightened as the rest, and had a little before said to Fräulein Duff that she might be sure she would not forsake her. He thought she went over towards the left, but he was not sure, for he had had hard work to manage the horses, that had been quiet enough all along, but now could not be kept still.
With this he mounted his seat and started to follow the others. I called to him and ordered him to stop; but either he did not or would not hear me, or else he could not hold the horses any longer--be that as it might, the next minute I was alone, while the company with the lanterns, under Hans's guidance, kept their way across the heath towards the woods.
CHAPTER XVII.
I was about to hurry after them, and compel them to give me some assistance, when a flash of lightning of unusual vividness showed me the hillock or "giant's barrow" which lay about a hundred paces from where I stood, and which I had not perceived before. Whether I expected to get a wider range of vision from its top, or whether it was an instinctive impulse, or both, I do not know, but in the next moment I was at the foot of the hillock among the great stones. Another dazzling flash, and a shudder seized me, and my hair began to rise on my head. There, on the top, by the hazel-bushes that were bent and lashed by the storm, surrounded by a spectral light, stood with loose-flying hair the unhappy girl looking out for her lover who was drowned in the morass. In an instant the pitchy darkness closed again, and a crash of thunder drowned my sudden cry. Had I lost my senses? And instantly, while yet the thunder crashed and the thick darkness surrounded me, it flashed upon me like a heavenly revelation, and my heart gave a great throb, and I gave a shout of joy, and in a moment I was at the top and had found her and lifted her in my arms and shouted again, and she wound her arms around me and clung to my breast, so close! so close! and I kneeled before her and she leaned over me and said:
"Quick, quick, here in the dark where I do not see you; I love you! I love you!"
"And I love you!"
"None but me?"
"None but you!"