Walter stood by. Adela looked up at him, half shyly, half archly, but there was no rose for him.
Later in the evening, while Nordstedt and the Freiherr were playing a game of chess, the other two were walking along the same garden-path and by the same rose-bush.
"You gave me no rose to-day," Walter said, pausing in their stroll.
"From whom did you desire a greeting?" she asked him, mockingly.
"No one sends me any, and I expect none. But I have brought you something that looks like a greeting from the past. Will you not receive it as such?"
He held out the ring to her, and told her how it had been found.
"My ring! How strange!" exclaimed Adela. But she did not take it. She dropped the hand she had extended towards it, and said, half turning away her head, "The ring does not belong to me. I gave it away."
"You know I cannot keep it?"
"But I wish you to keep it."
Walter was silent for a moment, and then said, gently, "Adela, do you remember all I told you then?"