'I fear some harm has been done already; and I do not think that any gentleman should dance with a young lady before he has obtained the permission of her chaperone.' There was now a pause, after which the Countess said: 'The Count urges our return before Heinrich arrives; so we shall take the train to Aix-la-Chapelle to-morrow.' 'So very soon, aunt?' said Herminia, growing pale. 'My dear, I am sorry to spoil your pleasure here; but to-morrow morning _we go_,' said the Countess, rising haughtily; 'come with me, Ernestine. I need your assistance with my correspondence.' The mother and daughter swept out of the room, their dresses--the rustling moiré of the Countess and the maize-coloured silk of Ernestine--gliding noiselessly over the varnished floor, and Herminia was left to her own sad reflections. 'Ich bin sehr böse!' (I am very angry) she heard the Countess exclaim, as the door closed, and then she heard her cousin make some laughing response. 'How can Ernestine be so heartless?' thought the girl; 'but, alas! she knows not what love is! To-morrow,' she exclaimed aloud--'to-morrow, I shall lose him, and perhaps for ever, my dear, dear Ludwig!' Her handsome eyes were now welling over with hot, salt tears. She had her arms above her head, with her white slender fingers interlaced amid the coils of her beautiful brown hair; her eyes were cast mournfully upward; then she tore her fairy fingers asunder with a sob in her throat and let her hands drop by her side as she sank back in her chair. 'Would to Heaven that I had never known him--that we had never, never come to Cologne,' she exclaimed. She felt that she must see Ludwig once again; but this dreadful cousin, how was he to be avoided? These two ideas filled her whole soul as she sat, silent and motionless, looking out on the view that lay before the hotel windows: the broad waters of the famous Rhine, shining redly in the light of the setting sun, covered with sailing vessels and steamers shooting to and fro, its great pontoon bridge, through which the current surged, the wilderness of roofs that formed the city--that Rome of the north which Petrarch apostrophized to Colonna--stretching far away, with the great masses of the unfinished cathedral, the dome of St. Gereon, with its three galleries, and the stately tower of St. Cunibert rising high in the air and casting mighty shadows eastward. But Herminia surveyed them all as one who was in a dream, and kept repeating to herself, as she drew the rose from her breast and pressed it to her trembling lips with all a young girl's fervour: 'Yes--yes--I must see him once again, and then all will be over--over for ever!'