Then they walked side by side through the dusky garden, the neatly kept paths of which were strewn with white gravel, and skirted, like glittering rivulets, the smooth turf. The shrubs exhaled an indescribable fragrance, the breath of spring mingled with the scent of dying things, and in the tree-tops that waved above their heads, they heard the subdued whispering twitter of home-coming birds. "How beautifully everything has come out here since I went away!" he exclaimed. "Yes, _Herr_," she answered. "It has never been so beautiful as it is now." "It has become so all at once?" he asked, smiling. He looked at her sideways and noticed the hollows in her cheeks. But an exquisite colour was already tinging them. She has begun to live again, he thought to himself, and it seemed as if the next few hours were to be the last vouchsafed to him too of a vanishing happiness. "In spite of everything, you have worked hard," he said, striving to retain his tone of condescending patronage, and he pointed to the neat borders in which auriculas and primroses were planted. She gave a proud little laugh. "I thought to myself you should find everything in order if you _did_ come back, _Herr_." "But you have neglected yourself, Regina. How is that?" She turned her face away, blushing hotly. "Shall I tell the truth, _Herr_?" she stammered. "Of course," he said. "I thought ... I ... was ... going to die ... and so ... it wouldn't matter." He was silent. It was as if she poured forth an ocean of infinite love with every word, and that its waves rolled over him. The lawn on the farther side of the Castle, sloping gently down to the park, now opened before his gaze. There stood the weather-beaten socket of the Goddess Diana's pedestal. Regina had collected the pieces and put them together again, but the torso had been beyond her strength to lift, and it lay in the grass, while the head, with its blank white eyes, looked down on it. A few steps farther on, a dark four-cornered patch stood out in relief from the emerald turf. That was the spot where he had first seen her busily employed in digging a grave for her seducer, whom every one else refused to bury. "I left it as it was--in memory of me," she said apologetically, pointing to the turned-up clods that, now overgrown with grass, had joined and formed a bank. Then they walked on towards the undergrowth that surrounded the cottage like a thick hedge. "And I have mended the glass roof too," she said. "Ah! indeed!" Their eyes met for a moment, and then they both quickly looked in front of them again. There was an aspect of peaceful welcome about the little house. Its window panes had caught a ray of the departing sunlight, while all else lay buried in deepest shadow. A sense of contentment at being at home, and of gladness that this was his home, overcame him, and for a moment allayed his gnawing restlessness.