Then they walked on towards the undergrowth that surrounded the cottage like a thick hedge.
"And I have mended the glass roof too," she said.
"Ah! indeed!"
Their eyes met for a moment, and then they both quickly looked in front of them again. There was an aspect of peaceful welcome about the little house. Its window panes had caught a ray of the departing sunlight, while all else lay buried in deepest shadow.
A sense of contentment at being at home, and of gladness that this was his home, overcame him, and for a moment allayed his gnawing restlessness.
"Go," he said, "and cook me something for supper; I am hungry and exhausted after a long ride."
He remembered his horse for the first time, and wondered where it had galloped to. Then the next instant he forgot it again.
"And make yourself neat," he continued. "I should like you to look your best when you come to table."
"Yes, Herr--I'll try."
They separated in the vestibule. He went into the sitting-room, and she to her kitchen. He threw himself with a deep sigh on the sofa, that creaked beneath his weight. Everything seemed the same as on the night he had left it, except that the curtain had been taken away from the corner by the stove, and the couch removed; the portrait of his grandmother, too, had disappeared. The shot which grazed Regina's neck had proved its final destruction, and reduced it to ribbons.