"Thus he asked me yesterday, when we met the third time at the same hour and the same place on the great wall, and had exchanged the same phrases about the weather, if it would not be better hereafter to say simply: 'As yesterday,' unless the weather should have changed. We should thus avoid meeting in silence, which was always painful for people staying at the same house, and yet reduce the cost of conversation to a minimum, a saving which was not unimportant even for the cleverest among us--and an ironical bow. That was pretty strong; but, as I tell you, he says these things with such a quiet smile that it is hard to tell whether he is in earnest or not. They all seem to have a certain respect for him here, even mamma. But with Bruno he stands on a very peculiar footing, and it is really a beautiful sight to see them saunter through the garden, arm in arm, not at all like tutor and pupil, but rather like two intimate friends, a real Orestes and Pylades. This touching friendship, however, does not prevent Bruno from playing at being my knight on every occasion. The boy reads in my eyes what I want, or rather he guesses it and knows it even without my looking at him. At times this almost frightens me. When I think during the promenade: I might as well lay aside my shawl! Bruno is sure to say: Shall I carry your shawl, Helen? At table he sits at my side, and only hands me what I like; the other dishes he lets pass, and says: I know you don't eat that, Helen! He is a darling of a boy, although that name hardly suits him, for he will soon be sixteen, and he is tall and strong like a youthful Achilles. I believe he would go through the fire for me; into the water he jumped only yesterday for my sake. We were walking in the evening on the wall, and the wind blew my straw hat into the moat. My poor hat! I cried. Do you want it? asked Bruno.--Why, of course, I said--but only jesting, for I knew the moat is quite deep, and at that place it was some twenty feet wide. The hat was floating towards the middle. Bruno was down the wall in an instant, and into the water. I was frightened, and I believe I actually cried out. Don't be troubled, said Mr. Stein, fortunately no one else was present,--Bruno swims like a Newfoundland dog, and even if he should not return, he would have died like a knight in the service of the fair. That is always a consolation.--Fortunately, Bruno came swimming back after two or three anxious minutes. Mr. Stein helped him on shore, and then they went off laughing, and left me quite alone--a touching picture, no doubt, with the soaked hat in my hand. But Mr. Stein seems to be quite offended at me for having exposed his pet to such danger. At least he did not appear this morning at the promenade; at table he was quite monosyllabic, and begged me to excuse him from the lesson in literature, which he gives me twice a week, because he had 'a headache.' This fortunately did not prevent him from standing out in the garden, in the broiling afternoon sun, for half an hour or more, as I noticed from my window. He remained there almost immovable, with folded arms, staring into the basin of a fountain, from which a Naiad looked smiling down upon him.--He is a strange kind of a saint...."
The young lady had no doubt intended to state nothing but the truth in this letter, which evidently revealed more of her innermost soul than she probably supposed, but as to the reason for Oswald's sombre and absent-minded ways she was nevertheless mistaken.
CHAPTER III.
It was the evening of the same day on which Helen was watching Oswald near the fountain of the Naiad, from her window, that in a room of the Hôtel Bellevue, at N., a place celebrated on account of Doctor Birkenhain's famous asylum for insane persons, a lady and a gentleman were sitting near a door opening upon a balcony. Twilight had come; guests were returning, dust-covered, from their afternoon excursions; from time to time a carriage rolled by, in which beautiful ladies were sitting, comfortably reclining on soft cushions. Then the street became more quiet, and over the gardens rose the evening star in the saffron-colored sky. The lady in the balcony door sat with her eyes fixed on the star; the gentleman, who sat further back in the room, looked at her. Both had not spoken a word for the last half-hour; now the gentleman rose, came close up to the lady's chair, and said in a low tone:
"I must go, Melitta."
"When will you call to-morrow?"
"I shall not come again to-morrow; I shall leave N. this very evening."
"But you promised to stay as long as possible, that is, till the appointment with the Brown Countess forced you to return?"
"I meant to do so, but it is useless. I have had a long conversation to-day with Doctor Birkenhain; he thinks it impossible that Berkow will awake again before he dies. And suppose he should be roused, what does it help him if I am present? The other day I came in twice, and what did he want? Nothing--to ask me if the testament was securely kept! That was all!"
"But he might change his last will----"