the garden, in the broiling afternoon sun, for half an hour or more, as I noticed from my window. He remained there almost immovable, with folded arms, staring into the basin of a fountain, from which a Naiad looked smiling down upon him.--He is a strange kind of a saint...." The young lady had no doubt intended to state nothing but the truth in this letter, which evidently revealed more of her innermost soul than she probably supposed, but as to the reason for Oswald's sombre and absent-minded ways she was nevertheless mistaken. CHAPTER III. It was the evening of the same day on which Helen was watching Oswald near the fountain of the Naiad, from her window, that in a room of the Hôtel Bellevue, at N., a place celebrated on account of Doctor Birkenhain's famous asylum for insane persons, a lady and a gentleman were sitting near a door opening upon a balcony. Twilight had come; guests were returning, dust-covered, from their afternoon excursions; from time to time a carriage rolled by, in which beautiful ladies were sitting, comfortably reclining on soft cushions. Then the street became more quiet, and over the gardens rose the evening star in the saffron-colored sky. The lady in the balcony door sat with her eyes fixed on the star; the gentleman, who sat further back in the room, looked at her. Both had not spoken a word for the last half-hour; now the gentleman rose, came close up to the lady's chair, and said in a low tone: "I must go, Melitta." "When will you call to-morrow?" "I shall not come again to-morrow; I shall leave N. this very evening." "But you promised to stay as long as possible, that is, till the appointment with the Brown Countess forced you to return?" "I meant to do so, but it is useless. I have had a long conversation to-day with Doctor Birkenhain; he thinks it impossible that Berkow will awake again before he dies. And suppose he should be roused, what does it help him if I am present? The other day I came in twice, and what did he want? Nothing--to ask me if the testament was securely kept! That was all!" "But he might change his last will----" "No. At the time when he wrote his last will, before myself and old Baumann, he was still in possession of his mind, though sick and feeble; he made you his sole heir, as he was bound to do. He knew he owed you at least that sign of repentance. He meant to say by that: I am not quite as bad as you thought me; I see at least that I have made you very unhappy, and I would try to undo what I have done, if it were in my power." "Let us drop that subject!" said Melitta, rising and leaning over the railing of the balcony to look down into the dark street. Then she came back into the room and said: "Do you go straight back to Cona?" "No, I mean to spend the time that is left me by going up the Rhine; perhaps I shall come back here on my return." "Then leave Czika here, will you? As a pledge that you do come back."