"Your husband? Oh, if Wronsky has gone to the circuit court at R----, he cannot be back again for two or three hours at least. It is so lovely here, why not stay?"
She looked at him almost angrily. "Why?" she repeated, and her eyes grew tender and yearning again. "Well, then let us stay," she added, in a low tone, and walked down to the water's edge.
Bernhard followed her. "You are strangely agitated to-day," he said, standing close beside her. "May I not, as your friend, know----?"
She seemed scarcely to hear him, but pointed towards the black canopy of clouds that hung above the forest on the other side of the water, and through which just then there shone a zigzag flash of flame.
"It is lightning!" she said.
He looked in her face; one might almost see the blood pulsing beneath the delicate transparent skin, and there was a gleam in her eyes akin to the lightning-flash in the clouds.
They stood thus silently side by side for some moments, until the servant had removed the fruit and wine and gone to the house.
"What is the matter?" Bernhard gently asked.
She shook her head, and a forced smile played about her mouth. "Nothing," she said; "nothing at all." But her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"What, tears!" he exclaimed, in alarm. "You have a sorrow that you are hiding from me! Am I no longer worthy of your confidence? What have I done?"