"Is it not strange," said Oswald, after a short pause, "what inapproachable beings some of us children of Adam are? What you have just told me, I have told myself more than once. I have admonished myself that having once agreed to sell my time and my talents for the benefit of this family, I am bound to make all necessary concessions--and yet, now that I hear you say the same thing, it wounds my feelings.... But I beg to assure you that it is not you I blame, but only myself, and that I am all the more pleased with myself because the hint you are giving me with such kind intentions ought certainly not to have disturbed me for a moment."
"I was sure," said the doctor, "that I had to do with a man who knows how to separate the chaff from the grain; if I had not been sure of that, you may be convinced I would not have spoken."
There followed another pause in the conversation of the two young men; the doctor repented perhaps in silence having been led by his good-nature to perform the ungrateful duty of giving advice unasked, while Oswald pursued his thoughts, and seemed to forget entirely that the pine-trees were swiftly gliding past him, and the doctor's swift horses had nearly accomplished the distance between Grenwitz and Berkow. He started in great surprise when he saw a light shining through the branches to the right of the road. He knew it came from the house of the forester at Berkow. On the other side a path led up to the clearing in the forest, where Melitta's hermitage stood. At this very place where they now were, the baron's carriage had been waiting for him the day before.
"Pray let me get out here," he said hurriedly to the doctor. "I am amazed to see that we are actually near Berkow. It is high time for me to return."
The carriage stopped and Oswald got out.
"I hope," he said, shaking hands with the doctor, "that this has not been the only distance nor the longest distance on the great road of life on which we shall keep each other company."
"I hope and wish the same," replied the other. "It seems to me as if our thoughts and feelings had much in common with each other, and to meet thus a kindred nature is far too fortunate a thing to be easily given up again. At all events, I shall soon be again in this neighborhood. In the mean time, good-by."
The carriage rolled away; the sounds soon ceased to be heard; the light in the forester's house disappeared--Oswald was alone amid darkness and silence.
And at once Melitta's image appeared again before his mind's eye, and swiftly glided before him along the narrow forest path on which he now crept stealthily and silently like a poacher. Suddenly he found himself on the clearing; he stopped, frightened as if lightning had fallen by his side--there was a light in the window of the cottage! He had left Melitta at the château, and she was here, not fifty yards from where he stood--he had only to cross the meadow and to ascend a few steps--to open a door. Oswald leant against the trunk of a beech-tree to calm his wildly beating heart. And if anybody should see him here! If he should recklessly endanger Melitta's reputation! Breathless he listened ... the night was silent ... he heard nothing but those strange, mysterious voices which are never heard in broad daylight, and which are born at the break of night: a whispering and twittering up in the branches, a rustling and rushing below in the dry leaves on the ground--the subdued barking of a dog far out in a village. An owl came swiftly and silently on its broad wings and nearly touched his face; it flew off like an arrow. Otherwise all around still as the grave. But what is that? A low, threatening growl, close to his ear? It was Melitta's gigantic dog, who kept watch and guard at the entrance to the cottage. The faithful guardian probably had discovered the presence of a stranger, for he rose, jumped down the steps, and came bounding along, running around the house like a shepherd's dog around his flock.
"Boncœur?" called Oswald, as the animal came near him; "ici!"