After Yvonne’s visit, he and Ruth were much together. It seemed to happen so. They took long walks into the woods, but Ruth seemed to share now her father’s aversion to climbing, and Gethryn stalked the deer with only the Jaegers for company. Ruth and her father used to come home with their arms full of wild flowers—the fair, lovely wild blossoms of Bavaria which sprang up everywhere in their path. The colonel was great company on these expeditions, singing airs from obsolete operas of his youth, and telling stories of La Grange, Brignoli and Amodio, of the Strakosches and Maretzeks, with much liveliness. Sometimes there would be a silence, however, and then if Ruth looked up she often met his eyes. Then he would smile and say: “Well, Daisy!” and she would smile and say: “Well, dear!” But this could not last. About a week after Yvonne’s visit, the colonel, after one of these walks, instead of joining Rex for a smoke, left him sitting with Ruth under the beech tree and mounted the stairs to Mrs Dene’s room. It was an hour later when he rose and kissed his wife, who had been sitting at her window all the time of their quiet talk, with eyes fixed on the young people below. “I never dreamed of it!” said he. “I did, I wished it,” was her answer. “I thought he was—but they are all alike!” she ended sadly and bitterly. “To think of a boy as wellborn as Rex—” But the colonel, who possibly knew more about wellborn boys than his wife did, interrupted her: “Hang the boys! It’s Ruth I’m grieved for!” “My daughter needs no one’s solicitude, not even ours!” said the old lady haughtily. “Right! Thank God!” said the veteran, in a tone of relief. “Good night, my dear!” Two days later they left for Paris. Rex accompanied them as far as Schicksalsee, promising to follow them in a few days. The handsome, soldierly-looking Herr Förster stood by their carriage and gave them a “Glück-liche Reise!” and a warm “Auf Wiedersehen!” as they drove away. Returning up the steps slowly and seriously, he caught the eye of Sepp and Federl, who had been looking after the carriage as it turned out of sight beyond the bridge: “Schade!” said the Herr Förster, and went into the house. “Schade!” said Federl. “Jammer-schade!” growled Sepp. On the platform at Schicksalsee, Rex and Ruth were walking while they waited for the train. “Ruth,” said Rex, “I hope you never will need a friend’s life to save yours from harm; but if you do, take mine.” “Yes, Rex.” She raised her eyes and looked into the distance. Far on the horizon loomed the Red Peak. The clumsy mail drew up beside the platform. It was the year when all the world was running after a very commonplace Operetta with one lovely stolen song: a Volks-song. One heard it everywhere, on both continents; and now as the postillion, in his shiny hat with the cockade, his light blue jacket and white small clothes, and his curly brass horn, came rattling down the street, he was playing the same melody: