Rossel, of whom she took no leave, sank into still deeper melancholy when he learned of her departure, and the innocent Kohle, who was always the last to notice anything that was going on about him, contrived to pour oil on the fire by exhausting himself in eulogies of this remarkable girl, who was missed now in every nook and corner. He was forced to content himself with immortalizing, from memory, her little nose and golden mane, as he called it, in the scene at the cloister; in which effort he succeeded but poorly, according to the judgment of Fat Rossel. And so, in spite of the cheerful autumn days, the atmosphere in the villa was none of the brightest. Even in the case of the convalescent Felix, the more he felt his strength increase, the less did he seem to rejoice in the new lease of life that had been granted him. Those words of greeting from his old love, that had made him so happy in his feverish dreams, had vanished from his memory upon his return to perfect consciousness. He only knew that her uncle had received daily bulletins of his condition, and that they would not leave Starnberg until all danger was over. But they might easily have shown as much sympathy as that to a stranger, with whom they had chanced to stand in merely formal relations. For the rest, in what respect had the situation been changed by his adventure? Altogether to his advantage? A life and death struggle with a boatman about a waiter-girl! Surely a dubious test, that, of the correctness of his principles regarding looseness and freedom of morals; a new proof of how correctly she had acted when, with a single sharp cut, she severed her life from his. And now, under what pretext could he give her an explanation of the real origin of the whole affair? And what further interest could she take in the doings of one whom she had wholly given up? What did it concern her whether, in pursuing his own wild courses, he showed himself more or less unworthy of her? But the pride which rebelled against making any overtures secretly gnawed at his heart. More than once, after the wound in his hand permitted him to scribble a few letters, he had sat down to write to her uncle. In doing so, he could certainly put in a word in explanation of the very innocent occasion of his bloody adventure. But in the midst of his writing it would seem to him as if, according to the old saying, he were making the evil worse with every excuse. And then, could he ever hope to explain away that sin--which was in her eyes the heaviest--his dancing with the girl? So he tore up the letters he had begun, and, gnashing his teeth, resigned himself to the fate of suffering unjustly, and being better than he seemed.