Oswald was deeply moved by the contents of that letter. He had loved and honored Berger as a friend; he had won his good-will in an unusual degree, and been allowed to see more than anybody else, perhaps, of the inner life of the eccentric man. How often had he listened to his marvellous eloquence, when he, suddenly leaving the world of logic, had entered upon a world of which all we know has been revealed to us by intuition; a world so fantastic, so fabulous, but also so divinely beautiful and pure, that Oswald forgot everything else, and fancied he was walking bodily about in this Fata Morgana, till the magician let the gorgeous image sink and vanish by a word of bitter contempt and wild despair! And now this noble mind, with all its wealth, was destroyed! This lofty intellect buried in the hideous night of insanity! Oswald felt as if the world was out of joint--so fearful, so inconceivable appeared to him this calamity. Must not all fall to ruin if such a magnificent pillar could stand no longer? Then friendship and love also were probably nothing but fables--then it was, perhaps, also more than a mere accident which betrayed to him this morning Oldenburg's present whereabouts?--For when Oswald had glanced at the letters which the postman had taken out of his mail-bag, to select his own, he had noticed one, which was evidently directed in Oldenburg's peculiar and unmistakable handwriting. The letter was for his steward at Cona. Why should the baron not write to his steward? But Oswald also noticed the stamp, which showed where the letter came from; and that was the same town to which Berger had just been sent--the same place where Baron Berkow had been living for seven years--the same place where Melitta had now been a fortnight, two days longer than Oldenburg's mysterious journey! Melitta, in her long letter which Oswald had received through Baumann, had not said a word about the baron; Bemperlein, however, must have written Baumann all about it, and hence the old man had been so embarrassed when he mentioned the persons who had been present at Melitta's visit to her husband. Why this mysterious manner in a man who looked like frankness and candor itself? Had he received orders to the purpose, or did he know his mistress so perfectly, that he preferred not to tell the whole truth in a case like this? These were the evil thoughts which filled Oswald's heart, as he was standing bareheaded in the hot afternoon sun, staring at the water in the fountain with the Naiad, while Miss Helen, at her writing-table, was wondering whether she was perhaps herself the cause of this troubled state of mind. But before she could come to any satisfactory conclusion about it, there came a knock at the door. The young lady immediately locked her portfolio, and seemed to be deep in Lamartine's _Voyage en Orient_, when upon her invitation the door opened and the baroness entered. "Do I disturb you, dear Helen?"