If his uncle did not learn to moderate himself, if he continued to look and to treat in this passionately tragical way an affair which, near as it lay to his heart, was in fact a matter of business and must be considered from a sober, business-like point of view, the bad days might indeed last long, inconveniently long, for all concerned--"to whom I myself belong now," said Reinhold. He stood up and went to the window. It was a raw, disagreeable day. From the low-hanging clouds was falling a fine, cold rain; the tall trees rustled in the wind, and withered leaves were driven through the grey mist. How different had it looked when a few days ago--it was only a very few, though it seemed to him an eternity--he had looked down here one morning, for the first time. The sky had been such a lovely blue, and white clouds had stood in that blue sky so still, it seemed as if they could not weary of contemplating the beautiful sun-lighted earth, on which men, surrounded, indeed, by the smoke of chimneys and distracted by the noise of wheels and saws, must earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, though the sun shone brightly and the birds sang cheerily in the thick branches--that earth on which there was so much pleasure, and love, and blessed hope, even in the heart of a poor blind girl, and a thousand times more for him who saw all this beauty spread out before him, doubly glorious in the reflection of the love which shone and glittered through his heart as the sun through the dewdrops on the leaves. And because the sun was now for a time hidden behind a cloud, was all the glory passed away? Because a few hundred idle men had cast their tools from their horny hands, must every one feel life a burden, and refuse to carry that burden any longer? No; a thousand times no! The sun will shine again; the men will return to their duty; and you, happy man--thrice happy man--for whom the sun shines in spite of all in your innermost heart, return to your work, which for you is no hard duty, but rather a joy and an honour. Reinhold greeted with eyes and hand the neighbouring house, one window of which he had long ago discovered between the branches of the plane trees, which he watched more eagerly than any star; and then hoped that Ferdinanda, whom he suddenly perceived in the garden, would take his greeting to herself if she had seen him. She could hardly have seen the greeting, and could not even have seen him at the window as she walked up and down between the shrubs, under the rustling trees, without appearing to notice the rain which was falling on her. At any rate she was without hat, without umbrella, in her working dress, without even a shawl; sometimes standing still and gazing up into the driving clouds, then walking on again, her eyes turned to the ground, evidently sunk in the deepest thought.