"Yes, but you must not bedaub the walls," said Mother Carsten.

"I promise I will not do that," said Oswald, smiling.

"Then you can stay as long as you choose. That is right, Stine, move the table closer up to the gentleman; and look here, get some of the old Cognac which Claus brought from England; pure water does no good in this unreasonable heat."

* * * * *

Oswald had been staying nearly a week in the village, and he had never repented for a moment his acceptance of Mother Carsten's invitation. He enjoyed her highest favor. He had not made a line on the white-washed walls of his little bedroom; he always had a kindly word for everybody, even for the immensely old and almost crazy father of Mother Carsten, who sat all day long in his easy-chair, staring at the sun and at the sea, if his weary old eyes did not close in sleep, as was generally the case. Mother Carsten said Oswald was as "orderly and staid" a man as his predecessor, but that he was still less "right here,"--and the forefinger went up to the forehead again,--than the other one. Mother Carsten was induced to make such a strange remark by the fact that Oswald not only did not cover the walls of his bedroom with charcoal sketches of ships under sail, with cliffs around which the gulls were fluttering, and with original faces of weather-beaten sailors, as his predecessor had done, but that he did not draw or paint at all, but simply ran about all day long on the strand, or pulled himself all alone in a small boat so far out into the offing that they could hardly make him out in the distance! How he could amuse himself all the time. Mother Carsten could not divine; she would have probably thought it as mysterious as ever if she had seen Oswald, as soon as he was alone, draw a letter from his pocket which an old, odd-looking man had handed to him several days before, and read it over and over again, as if he had not long since known every word and every letter by heart. The odd-looking old man, who rode one of those high-legged, long-necked horses that Claus had seen in England, was, of course, no one else but old Baumann on Brownlock. Oswald had sent him word, the day after his arrival at the village, that he intended for the present to stay there, and the same information had been sent to Grenwitz. The next day already had brought him a letter from his beloved. It contained only a few words, hastily written on the journey, just before retiring, in a small town of Central Germany--a few words, confused and sad, but sweet and precious, like kisses from beloved lips at the moment of wedding. He had sent his answer back by Baumann, and was now looking daily for another and a fuller letter with an impatience which was by no means altogether joyous.

All minds busy with ideals are apt to complain that nothing here below is perfectly pure, and that often as we strive to ascend into brighter and purer regions, a painful burden of earthy matter drags us soon down again to the eternal level.

Oswald also had frequently suffered from this difficulty; it had spoilt many of his pleasures, it had made him dislike many good people and bad musicians, it threatened even now to become fatal to his love. Not long ago he had made the terrible discovery in his own heart that treachery was lurking there when he thought it altogether filled with love. He had excused himself, it is true, as to the scene in the bay-window at Barnewitz, by saying: I was beside myself; I did not know what I was doing--but can jealousy ever be an excuse for faithlessness? And then: Was that jealousy at least perfectly dead now? Had it not blazed up again in bright flames when he found Melitta's image behind the curtain in the baron's room? Had he not listened to Melitta's recital with breathless apprehension, ever fearing lest now a fact might come out which would after all confirm his suspicions about that man--lest she might, after all, have loved this remarkable man, perhaps without knowing it herself? Had she not said: "I thought I loved him!" And at the very moment when her story had reached the catastrophe which was to explain everything, even her evident antipathy to Oldenburg at this time--just then a message is brought of such a strange and weird nature that it ends in upsetting Oswald's overwrought mind! It was not enough, that he had in Baron Oldenburg a rival facing him in bodily presence; he must now encounter, besides, a husband, or at least the ghost of a husband, who rises from a night of insanity that has lasted seven years, to beckon her to his dying bed--her, his beloved, his Melitta! Oswald felt as if his own mind would give way were he to follow out this thought. He had so completely forgotten that Melitta had ever been married, that she had ever lain in the arms of another man, it mattered little whether she had loved him or not--that she had ever accepted his caresses--he crushed her letter, he could have cried aloud with pain, he felt like dashing his head against the rocky cliffs. Why this poison in the cup of his love? Why must the pure garments of his angel be dragged through the mire of vulgar life? Why must a foul worm have been gnawing at the beautiful flower? And if she were only free now! But even when the night of insanity was to be swallowed up in the night of death, she would not be free yet. She is the mother of her child, of his child, and this consideration, forgotten for the moment, will resume its place in the foreground, and she will have to give me up! And yet, why should it not be so? Can I, the enthusiast for liberty, ever marry the aristocrat? Can I dream of intruding upon a class of men who will ever look at me askant? No! No! Rather live like these poor fishermen, who must earn their daily bread at the risk of their lives in their strife with the cruel ocean.

Thus Oswald's mind was wandering restlessly about in a labyrinth of painful doubts as he himself was wandering among the cliffs on the lonely shore, and who knows where this constant brooding on painful riddles might have led him in the end, if an event had not occurred which forced him unexpectedly, and very much against his will, to return to that society which he hated so bitterly.

CHAPTER XIII.

For when he returned on the next following day, towards evening, from a long absence to the village, he found a carriage and two horses standing before the door of Mother Carsten's cottage. This was so very unusual an event in this secluded part of the world, that Oswald at once presumed something extraordinary must have happened. Women and children, and the few men who were not out fishing, stood staring around the carriage and the door of the cottage. They wanted to know if Stephen, Mother Carsten's father, was really going to die this time, or whether the young doctor whom Mother Carsten had sent for a few hours ago, would once more save him in spite of his fearful cough.