As a matter of fact, as she ascended higher and higher a pale streak appeared over to the right--the coast of the continent--then again the leaden gray surface of the sea, upon which a sail could be discerned here and there; finally, on this side, immediately below her, a white point of dunes, which gradually grew wider in the shape of a wedge toward the promontory, till it became a small flat peninsula, in the middle of which a dozen small houses lay on the brown heath among the dunes--that was Wissow! That must be Wissow! And now that she stood on the point which she had striven with all her physical and mental strength to reach, and, however longingly she extended her arms, the goal of her longing still lay so far, so unattainably far from her--now for the first time she thought she understood the silent dreadful speech of the waste, the loneliness about her, the rustling whisper of the heath, the voices of spirits wailing in the air: Alone! Alone! Unspeakable sorrow arose in her heart; her knees shook, she sank near the boulders upon a stone, covered her eyes with her hands and broke into loud crying, like a helpless, abandoned child. She did not see a man, who was leaning against the signal staff observing the sea, startled by the strange sound near him, come from behind the boulders; she did not hear him coming up to her with hurried steps across the narrow grass plot.---- "Else!" She started up with a stifled shriek. "Else!" And then she cried aloud--a cry of wild joy, which echoed strangely through the noiseless stillness--and she lay on his breast, clung to him, as one drowning. "Reinhold! My Reinhold!" She wept, she laughed, she cried again and again, "My Reinhold!" Speechless for joy and astonishment at the precious miracle, he drew her to him upon the rock on which she had sat; she pressed her head upon his breast. "I so longed for you!" "Else, dear Else!" "I had to come, I could not do otherwise; I was drawn hither by spirit hands. And now I have you, you! O never leave me again! Take me with you down to your house yonder. There is my home! With you! With you! Do not thrust me out again into the dreary, loveless, false world there behind me! Only with you is joy, rest, peace, truth, fidelity! O your dear, true heart, how it beats; I feel it! It loves me as I do you! It has yearned for me as my poor shattered heart has for you, for you!" "Yes, my Else, it has yearned for you, unspeakably, beyond measure. I climbed up here, because it had no peace; I only wished to cast a glance out there where I knew you to be--a last look, before----" "Before? For Heaven's sake!" He had led her the few steps to the boulders and now stood, throwing his arm about her, close to the edge of the promontory, whose sullen front was so steep that she seemed to be floating in the air above the gray sea.