The moon had risen higher; the shrubbery walk at the bottom of the garden, down which Reinhold could see some distance from the window where he stood, was in parts quite light between the bushes. Across one of the light spots a female form had just glided, only to disappear, and did not pass into the light again. But she must do so if she belonged to the house; the path went round a grass-plot in its immediate vicinity, and lay in the full light of the moon, and by leaning out a very little he could easily see over it. But why should she belong to the house? On one side of the garden was a small outhouse in which there was a lighted window. The figure might have come from thence. "And at any rate," thought Reinhold, "it is no business of yours, and you can go to bed."
He was just about to shut the window when he observed the figure again, this time in the path which ran along the wall, or wooden paling (he could not distinguish which), that on the left hand separated the garden for a little way from the neighbouring one. The wall, or paling, was overshadowed by high trees on that side. The moon shone on the right hand, but the distance was too great to distinguish with certainty more than the outline of the dark figure, as it slowly walked up and down the path, and finally stood still close to the wall, so that Reinhold could no longer see the shadow which before had been perceptible on the light background. It seemed, however, as if she leaned her head against the wall for a long time, staying in this attitude for at least two or three minutes, then she stooped and took up something, which for a moment shimmered white in the moonlight, and which she pressed to, or perhaps concealed, in her bosom. And then she came away from the wall and farther into the garden, slowly walking up and down between the bushes as she had done before on the path, but each time coming nearer till she reached the grassplot. Then she stood still, and seemed to take a sweeping glance over the house; then she came over the grass-plot. It was Ferdinanda!
Involuntarily he withdrew from the window. "Why of course! Why should it not be Ferdinanda trying to calm her shaken nerves by taking a walk in the cool night air? Her slow gait, her repeated halting--of course the leaning against the wall was a return of the fainting! He ought to have run to her assistance and picked up her handkerchief which she had let drop, instead of stopping here playing the spy! It was too bad!"
He shut his window quietly, without venturing to light any candles in the present uneasy state of his conscience, but helped himself as well as he could by the light of the moon, which certainly was bright enough, so bright indeed that long after he was in bed he lay and watched the silver rays, through an opening in the curtains, shining further and further in upon the wall, till at last the usual deep and profound sleep closed his eyelids.
CHAPTER V.
The next morning was lovely. The bright sun shone into his room from a blue and cloudless sky as Reinhold pushed the curtains aside and opened the window. Beneath him the dewdrops glistened upon the blades of grass in the round plat; in the bushes and amongst the branches of the tall trees, through which a soft breeze was playing, the golden light shone and twittering birds were flitting about. Reinhold cast a shy glance towards the left, upon the division between the two gardens, which he now perceived to be a high paling. If that garden were the same of which young Werben spoke yesterday, then those overhanging trees hid a secret amidst their green shadows, a secret which his rapidly-beating heart again whispered to him eagerly, passionately, as though there were nothing else in the world worth the trouble of beating for.
A knock at the door sounded. Reinhold hastily put on his coat. It was not his uncle, only Justus Anders' favourite model for aged fathers, the grey-haired, grey-bearded servant with the wonderfully expressive wrinkles in the withered face.
His master had inquired several times for the Captain; just now again when he came in for his second breakfast (he drank his coffee always at five o'clock, sometimes earlier), and he got quite angry at the Captain not having made his appearance. Fräulein Ferdinanda had been working in her studio since nine o'clock; but Fräulein Rikchen was downstairs in the dining-room waiting to make the Captain's coffee.
Reinhold had in honour of the day dressed himself in his best, or, in sailor language, put on his shore clothes, so he was able to follow the old man immediately, and to go in search of Aunt Rikchen. He was glad to be able to have a little gossip alone with his aunt, and notwithstanding the silence of last night, he did not fear that she had forgotten the art of gossip.
Aunt Rikchen sat at one end of the breakfast table behind the coffee-pot, and knitted (her spectacles quite on the tip of her nose) with extreme rapidity, so lost in occupation and thought that she did not observe Reinhold's entrance, and now jumped up with a little, nervous shriek. But she stretched out her hand to him with a smile which was meant to be very friendly, though her eyes were full of tears, which disappeared as suddenly as they came and left no trace.