She was silent, her looks bent on the ground. He, too, looked away from her beyond the crosses and marbles of the church-yard, where the autumn asters were blooming and a few belated white butterflies were fluttering. All was so quiet around them, except for the low rustling amid the old oaks on the other side of the church-yard, and a soft twitter from a little bird perched on the roof of the chapel, who hushed his note suddenly, as though silenced by the influence of the spot.
Walter's gentle mood had changed. He was irritated by the provoking silence of this girl, who had no kind reply for him, and he was wellnigh ashamed of having made an attempt to renew the youthful friendship the loss of which had given him more pain than he liked to acknowledge even to himself.
He arose and touched his hat.
"Farewell, Fräulein Adela," he said, and turned to go.
Then she looked up, and all the former bravado had vanished from her eyes. "Walter!" she said, and at the sound of her voice he stopped involuntarily. "Walter, do not go; stay for one moment and listen to me."
"I thought you wished me to go," he said.
She shook her head emphatically. "Do not tease me, Walter," she said, imploringly. "You see, it is not so easy to confess that one has been in the wrong. I know I was wrong, and that I am really very vain and often behaved very foolishly to you. You were quite right to be displeased, and I am glad to know that you were so, but for all that you need not be so very angry with me. You see, I know what a foolish girl I am; and indeed I don't care in the least what people in general think of me, but it cuts me to the heart when I see that you take my nonsense seriously and believe me heartless."
"Walter sat down again beside her on the step.
"I never thought you 'heartless,' Adela," he cried, interrupting her; "only superficial and----"
"But that's just the same thing!" she exclaimed; "and I cannot change your opinion of me all in a moment. Perhaps you are partly right; but one thing I can and will promise you, and that is, that I will always in future be honest and frank with you, and never again play such idiotic pranks as on that day at Kissingen. I will not pretend to be better than I am, and neither will I pretend to be worse than I am, and you shall always have the right to lecture me and tell me what you think of me. In return you must promise always to be my friend. If ever I vex you again, tell me so, and scold me, but do not instantly run away from me as though I were too contemptible a thing to turn back and look at. Will you promise me this?"