After a pause during which he had felt the pulse of the child, he resumed, "She now sleeps quietly; if you wish to apprize your friends of your present abode, you have time to do so. The coachman, who is meanwhile getting ready, will post your letter at the next station." "I have no one, who would feel anxious at my non-appearance," said the lady, and blushed slightly; "I live so very retired!" "No one?" he repeated, with surprise, and involuntarily his eyes fastened on the two rings. She remarked his glance, and understood it instantly. "The second ring," she said unconstrainedly, "is not the sign of a second marriage. It belonged to my husband, who feeling death approaching, drew it from his finger and begged a comrade of his to bring it to me. Since that day, I have refused all solicitations to change my condition, and have only withdrawn from my dear husband's family, because a near relation of his, imagines that he has some claim to my hand. I have vowed to live only for my child, and to the memory of the dead, and this vow is sacred to me." The nurse now awoke, and reluctantly sat up on her couch, but she jumped up briskly, when she saw her mistress and the doctor already actively employed, and hastened with great zeal to relieve them; protesting that it was all the doctor's fault, as he had strictly forbidden her to watch. "Bathe the child," said Everhard; "I will now leave you for half an hour; bathe the child as we did yesterday, and let it drink some milk which you can now get fresh from the cow. And here comes a fresh supply of ice. You see the attendance could nowhere be better than it is in this desolate nook of the world. Fortunately an apothecary's shop is not needed in this case. Good-bye; we shall soon meet again." He bowed slightly and left the room. Then he walked down to the shore, loosened one of the boats which were chained up in the shed, and with a few powerful strokes launched the light bark into the open lake. The sun had not yet risen above the surrounding heights, overgrown with dark pines, and the calm and sultry air lay heavily on the dark surface of the water, and oppressed the chest of the young man who was fatigued by the sleepless night. He looked down into the depths below him and noticed that close to the boat the water seemed transparent as crystal, and nearly white, while the lake beyond, though the sky was bright and clear, appeared like a black unfathomable chasm. He recollected what a woodcutter had once told him, that the lake was bottomless--that its waters sank deeper and deeper till at last they reached hell; and so when the evil spirits there found their abode too hot for them, they went to bathe in them.