"What, tears!" he exclaimed, in alarm. "You have a sorrow that you are hiding from me! Am I no longer worthy of your confidence? What have I done?" "Nothing, nothing!" she said again. "You are the best, the noblest of men, and I--but I pray you, I entreat you, ask me nothing further!" Bernhard's eyes fell before her, and he was silent. Every moment it grew darker around them; the evening shadows made the water show almost black, except that now and then the lurid glare of the lightning was reflected in its calm surface. The sultry breath of the storm, heavy with the fragrance of the pines and the perfume of roses, was wafted across forest and water. To Bernhard it seemed stifling. He sighed heavily. "I wish I had _never_ returned from the ocean that night at Trouville," Julutta whispered; "then all suffering would be over, and I should be at peace!" "Julutta!" Again she shook her head sadly. "The waters have closed over our Island of the Blest forever," she whispered, scarce audibly. But Bernhard heard and understood. He clasped her white hand in both his own, and she made no resistance. "Bernhard!" she breathed, as if carried away by the spell of the moment. And he, too, yielded to the spell. "Julutta!" he cried, involuntarily opening his arms to her. But lithe and swift as some smooth serpent she glided past him. At the same instant a blast of wind ruffled the surface of the pond, and a few large drops of rain began to fall. Through the rising tempest Julutta's laughing voice fell upon his ear: "The thunder-storm is upon us!" she called, and the next instant had vanished behind the rocks. At such a moment she could laugh and remember the storm! To him it seemed a matter of course that the tempest should come: the wind and storm suited his mood. He did not think of seeking shelter, but through the increasing hurly-burly the conviction flashed upon him, vivid as the glare of the lightning, "Your conduct and your love are alike disgraceful!" He shuddered. Before him, among the tossing boughs and wind-swept bushes, fluttered a white robe,--Julutta was fleeing from the tempest. In an instant the flashing rain hid all around and before him in a gray twilight. He slowly took his way towards the house. Julutta had reached it long before he entered the hall, from the walls of which the portraits of Marzell's parents looked down upon him, strangely endowed with a ghostly life by the repeated flashes of lightning. The memory of his childhood was suddenly present as in a vision to Bernhard. He saw Marzell and himself on the knees of that kindly old man, he seemed to hear the gentle voice of Marzell's mother, and he passed his hand across his forehead with a sigh.