Oldenburg lifted the child in his arms and pressed her to his bosom. Oswald felt he ought to leave the three alone, and went back into the wood. There he sat down near the edge. It was the same place where he had been lying the other day dreaming such glorious things of Melitta, and where he had afterwards heard Czika play the lute, while the Brown Countess was busy with the fire, and sang with her deep, sonorous voice the Hungarian melody. What changes had taken place since that day! How much he had lost and won since! Then his heart beat high with expectation; now his soul was filled with sadness and grief. Why had she made him so indescribably happy if her love was, after all, but the sovereign whim of a moment, only an amusing play to fill up a vacant day? Had he not all the time felt in his soul that she, the haughty aristocrat, would drop him again sooner or later? Had he not, the very first time when he heard Oldenburg's name mentioned, recognized in that man almost instinctively his rival? And he had to confess now that that man possessed everything calculated to kindle a heroic passion in a great lady. Rank and riches, eminent talents, the courage of a knight without fear or reproach, and just enough of the character of a man of the world to captivate the fancy of a woman whose heart is not absolutely pure. And how attractive even his weariness of the world was, and his air of suffering! One would imagine, hearing him complain as he did, that he was on the point of going into the desert, to live there on locusts. Now he will probably take the gypsy to his solitude, to while away the hours till Melitta returns.... Oswald increased thus wilfully his own troubles of mind. The new passion which inflamed his imagination made him deaf to the voice of his conscience, blind to the evident proofs of the utter groundlessness of his assertions. He had an indistinct consciousness of his own weariness and exhaustion; he felt sick at heart, and perfectly unable to come to any clear conclusions about himself. He pressed his face into his hands, to see nothing, to hear nothing.... A hand, which touched his shoulder, aroused him from his revery. It was Oldenburg. The baron was alone. The fire of the piled-up wood blazed up fitfully, and was on the point of expiring. The moon, half covered by drifting gray clouds, twinkled ghastly in the dark water of the pool. The wind was whispering and wailing through the long reeds near the shore. "Where is Czika?" asked Oswald. "Gone," replied the baron. "Let us go. It is late." "Is she not coming back?" "I do not know." "And you have allowed this child, your child, to follow the wild gypsy woman into the wide world?"