They approached the opposite shore and Hanseï pointed out the figure of Uncle Peter waiting for them with the cart and the furniture, when Walpurga suddenly ceased rowing, and gave a startled cry.
"Heavens! What's that? I could swear, when I was singing I thought if only my good Countess Irma could see us here together, how happy she would be. And just now it seemed to me as though----"
"Come on, let's land," said Hanseï.
On the shore a figure in a fluttering garment was running up and down. It suddenly collapsed when the wind carried a full sound of music across the lake. Then it rose again, and vanished in the reeds.
"Have you seen nothing?" asked Walpurga.
"Rather! If it were not broad daylight, and if it were not superstition, I should think it was the mermaid, herself."
The boat at last touched the shore. Walpurga was the first to jump out. She hurried to the reed-bank, away from her people, and there, behind the willows, the apparition fell on her neck and broke down.
IV.--The Countess Irma's Atonement
Dr. Gunther received the first telegraphic news of his friend, Count Eberhard, having lost the power of speech through a stroke of paralysis. He was to break the news to Irma. For some time she had felt, through the physician's reserve and sympathetic kindness, that he could read her secret. And now she realised that sudden knowledge of her disgrace alone could have struck down her father, whose vigorous constitution had always kept illness at arm's length.
They arrived at the manor house before midnight, and were shown into the sufferer's room. Count Eberhard's eyelids moved quickly when he recognised Dr. Gunther's voice, and he tried to extend his hand towards his friend, but it fell heavily on the coverlet. Dr. Gunther seized it and held it in a firm grasp. Irma knelt down before the bed, and her father's trembling hand felt over her face, and was wetted by her tears. Then he quickly withdrew it, as though he had touched a poisonous animal; he turned away his face and pressed his forehead against the wall. Now he turned round again, and with a gentle movement indicated that he wished her to leave the room.