The farm-servant who hearing that the lady wished for the last strawberries of the season had climbed up there, to look for some, reported on his return that he had met the doctor seated on a rock, and looking like a man in a dream. He had bidden him good day, and the doctor had started up, and with a silent nod of recognition, had disappeared in the wood. He was evidently touched in the head, the farm-servant continued; I always said so from the moment I saw him sitting quite crazed like in the tap-room, and refusing all refreshment. This continued during several days. In proportion to the progress of the child's recovery did the doctor's melancholy, from which the sudden call of duty had roused him, appear to increase. Those days were full of gloom; he felt how necessary it was to abridge them. One forenoon he started without waiting for dinner, not caring to meet the sad inquiring look in Lucille's eyes. He climbed up the steep ravine with the firm resolve to arrive at a final decision. In spite of the fierce noon-day heat, he pursued a road which he had recently discovered, and which led towards the south across the rocky ridge of the mountains. He knew that if he continued his walk he would reach before night fall a Romanic[2] village which was separated from the dead lake by nearly impassable tracts of ice and snow. Once there, and he had achieved all that now seemed impossible to him, all leave taking was spared him and he was as one dead to those to whom he had now become useless.