Over there, in the corner gable, was the girls' bedroom. The hours that had just gone by occurred to him. How entirely they had vanished, and all that had happened in them seemed a far-off dream. He shut the window, burnt the letter, and undressed, for he wanted to sleep for the two hours still left to him. From habit, he was going to place beside his watch and purse on the bedside table the ring he had been wearing, when he hesitated. It was one Felicitas had given him in return for a diamond one of his. He contemplated the slender hoop with the line of sapphires, through the facets of which broke a play of light and dark-blue fire. Then he examined the inside, where, close to their initials, was inscribed the date of a memorable and fateful day. The custom of wearing the ring had become so mechanical, that he had kept it on his finger long after the last spark of his passion for the giver had been utterly extinguished. "Now you had better leave it off," he said to himself; for if she saw it on his finger she might easily draw her own conclusions. He determined, when morning came, to lock it away for ever. As he threw himself on the bed and settled his head in the pillows, he started up again, horrified, for some demon seemed to have enveloped him in the scent which the letter of his former mistress had brought home to his senses, and then he remembered that he had hurled the sheet of paper on the bed, and it had evidently left its traces behind. And though he turned and shook the pillow, and finally tossed it out of bed, that powerful odour--a mixture of iris and opoponax, with which everything around her was saturated, a sort of symbol of herself--the cursed odour would not budge. It tortured him with hateful dreams one minute, and the next brought him back to a grim awakening. At half-past five the gate watchman's long pole knocked on the window-pane, according to custom. He jumped up with his head on fire, the blood racing and thumping in his temples. The morning douche did not brace him. He scarcely felt the cold water as it ran down his slackened limbs. The weather was favourable, for the mist of the night shrouded the garden. The obelisk was a mere shadow, and there was not a trace of the trees to be seen. There was not the slightest fear of being observed from Uhlenfelde if he approached the island by boat. Why, then, should he put it off? Quarter of an hour later he was galloping along the high road under the dripping branches. He was obliged to take the round by Wengern, as the only boat the nearer landing-place boasted had sailed away with Hertha the day before.