But the lovers had to guard their secret carefully; they dared trust no confidant, lest their paradise should be laid waste before its gates had been fully opened to admit them. So they breathed their love to none but each other. The prince passed Gela with cold indifference if he met her in the castle court or at her work about the house, and Gela made lowly reverence, as if she were the meanest of his maids, to him who counted it his greatest honour to do her service. But at evening, when Frederick had roamed the forest since early morning, his bow on his shoulder and his faithful hounds by his side, the fair Gela might be seen walking along the high-road with a basket on her arm, or with a stock of newly-spun yarn, as if she were going to seek purchasers in the nearest town. But in the forest she would leave the broad path, and make her way through briars and underwood to a height on which her young prince awaited her beneath the shelter of a giant oak. There they would talk happily and innocently till the last sunbeam was quenched in the Kinzig stream, and the convent bell resounded through the arches of the forest; then they would fold their hands in prayer before saying farewell, in hope of a meeting on the morrow. So had it been for many a year. Their love remained unbetrayed, their hope unquenched, their faith unshaken. In the splendid halls of the palace, amid the proud and lovely ladies who surrounded the young prince with flattering marks of favour, the longing after the lonely forest in the Kinzig Valley and the fair and gentle loved one never died from his heart. They had met thus one evening with the old, yet ever new tenderness. Frederick drew Gela's fair head to his breast, and spoke to her of the near and blissful future, which would be theirs in a few weeks, when he would be of age, and would be able to lead her openly as his wife to his castle in the fair land of Bavaria, to the inheritance of his dead mother. And the oak tree overhead rustled gently, scattering golden leaves on Gela's beautiful hair, for it was far on in autumn. When the vesper bell of the forest cloister began to sound, it was already dark; the moonlight gleamed on the path, and Gela walked with her lover as far as the high-road, supported by his arm. But there the moon shone so brightly that they had to part, lest some prying eye should see them. "Meet me to-morrow, dearest!" said the young prince, once more kissing her blooming cheek; then Gela tripped lightly down the high-road towards the valley, while Frederick gazed after her till she vanished from his sight, when he called his dogs, and turned towards the castle.