The lamp was burning on the table before the sofa, but so dimly that even the faint gleam of the moon, which was just rising above the forest, could be distinctly seen in the room. A single star near the delicate crescent shone from the nightly blue of the sky. The soft balsamic air came in through the open window--it was so still that the noise of the falling dew-drops could be distinctly heard. And now, as Oswald sat and listened, he heard suddenly the sounds of a piano, coming to him like the echo of an Æolian harp. It was evidently a most skilful hand that produced them; first low, quite low, as if she feared to awake night from her slumber, then very gradually louder and louder. The accords floated slowly into a melody, and soon a soft alto voice began to sing the song to which the melody belonged. Oswald could not hear the words, but they seemed to be soft and sad as the air, which spoke wondrously to the heart with its simple touching complaint. Such music at such an hour would have charmed Oswald even if he had not suspected who the singer was. But now that he knew there was no one else who could sing here but the beautiful girl, before whom he had that night bowed his soul in adoration as before an apparition from on high, at seeing whom he had felt as if a new revelation was vouchsafed to him--now it touched the innermost chords of his heart, and he felt as if he must seek words to give vent to the overwhelming impression which he could not otherwise master. He rose like a drunken man from his seat at the window, he went to the table and wrote in wild, incoherent words, which gradually arranged themselves and finally assumed the shape of a sonnet. He locked it up carefully and went back to the window. The moon and the stars were hid behind a dark storm-cloud, which had risen behind them and now overhung that part of the heavens. The song had ceased and the night wind alone sang in the trees. He closed the window and went to his couch. A heavy sleep fell upon him, disturbed by anxious dreams. Now he was in a terrible fire, and now he was to be torn by wild beasts; then again he felt that indescribable anguish which seems to be a horror coming down to us from another world, but always at the moment of greatest need an angel appeared at his side and stretched a protecting hand over him, and this angel bore the features of--Melitta. CHAPTER XV. As Oswald was looking for something among the papers on his writing-table, on the following morning, he came upon a note, which he had overlooked the night before. He recognized at once the handwriting, which was as problematic as the writer, with its now bold and grand, now scribbled and confused characters. Oldenburg wrote:--