She was silent, and pressed her forehead against the edge of the pedestal, while her upstretched hands held on to the youth's foot, as if she had been the guardian angel instead of the evil genius of the friendship to whose symbol she clung.
The sun began to break through the mist. Its rays lay like a shimmering golden shell on the sacrificial stone which rose from the glittering dew like a gigantic pearl. Brilliant-hued butterflies flashed by the pillars, and now and again the song of a late-summer bird sounded softly from the bushes. The brook, which sprang out of the earth only a few paces from the temple, made a low clicking noise, then hurried away babbling into the valley, a scornfully laughing witness of this melancholy conversation.
Leo's eyes continued fastened on his former mistress. He was completely bewildered as to how to act towards her. There could be no further question of rebuke and blame, when help and counsel were needed and might save her. Yet what could he, what dared he do for her, without heaping guilt on guilt and introducing fresh deceit into the house of his unsuspecting friend?
"Lizzie," he said in a gentler voice, "you summoned me here. What do you want?"
"How can you ask, Leo?"
"I ask because I don't know."
"Why have you avoided me? Why have you made the poor innocent child a pretext for shunning Uhlenfelde? I used to think you had more courage, Leo."
This gave affairs an unexpected turn.
"I did not think further intercourse between us was possible, Lizzie," he said, "for both our sakes, as well as for your husband's and the world's. For what would the world say if it saw us interchanging courtesies again?"
"How calmly you ask the question," she answered, looking in front of her with her sweet smile.