The old man touched his cap, turned Brownlock round, and trotted through the pine-trees back to Berkow. Oswald hastened to his room without meeting anybody, as the company had not yet returned from their promenade. With trembling hand he opened the letter, and perused it with breathless haste, in order to read it over and over again, as we read letters in which every word touches us like kisses that come from lips we love. When he sat down late at night to write his answer, he heard the same voice singing which had produced such overflowing enthusiasm in him the preceding night; but to-day he closed the window, for he felt that his admiration for the beautiful girl was, after all, treason against his love of Melitta, although he tried, of course, after the manner of men, to silence the voice of his conscience as well as he could. Part Third. CHAPTER I. Unfortunately, the next day was to give him ample occasion for practising that wicked art. For that very morning, as he returned from his meeting with Baumann, who had been waiting for him in the forest at the appointed place to take his letter, he could not deny himself the pleasure of walking about a little in the garden. He intended only to stay a few minutes, to walk just once around on the great wall, but he had now made the turn twice from the great portal back again to the great portal, and was beginning to make it for the third time, for the morning was really delightful, and, if his eyes did not deceive him, a light dress was shining through the trees and shrubs on the other side. Probably one of the village girls at work in the garden. How he was surprised, therefore, when he found soon after that it was Miss Helen! He could not think of avoiding her. There were only a few flights of steps leading down into the garden. There was nothing left, therefore, but to cross his hands behind his back and to saunter slowly on, watching the birds as they fluttered about in the branches, and the ducks below in the moat, and to be a little surprised when he met Miss Helen precisely at the same time and the same place as yesterday.