Thus he wandered about in the park, down to the shore and back again, and once more to the sea-shore and back again, driven about by the furies of his own conscience. The damp cold air penetrated through his clothes, he did not mind it; he hurt himself against the dripping tree, he scratched his hand against the thorn-bushes, he did not feel it. Murmuring curses against providence, against mankind, against himself, he drank in full draughts from the cup of sorrow which a man prepares for himself in his folly, against the will of the gods and the counsel of fate. At last he found himself--he knew not how--before the garden-gate of Miss Bear's boarding-school. There was light in one of the windows--Helen's window. It was the first light he had seen for hours, and he felt as if a star was once more shining down into the night of his heart. Comfort and hope he knew that star could not bring him, but it softened his despair into sorrow. He glided into that humor in which man rises from the chaos of his own passions, looks full of painful pity at the careworn features of his genius, and feels the sorrows of the world in his own sorrow. He thought not of himself; he thought of the Son of Man, as he raised his voice, gathering his strength once more, and walking on the road towards town, and sang: "Thy face, alas! so fair and dear, I saw it in my dreams quite near. It was so angel-like, so sweet, And yet with pain and grief replete, The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they will be pale and dead." CHAPTER VII. A few days later a little company was assembled in the sitting-room of Privy Councillor Rohan's house. It consisted of the privy councillor himself, his daughter, Franz, and a young lady who had been brought there by Mr. Bemperlein: Mademoiselle Marguerite Martin. They had had supper, after waiting a whole hour for Mr. Bemperlein. Now they were sitting around the fire-place. Upon a table near Sophie, where usually the tea-things were placed, stood to-day a small tureen, from which the young lady filled at rare intervals one or the other's glass. The conversation was not particularly animated; a veil of melancholy seemed to hang over them all. No stranger would have guessed that this silent melancholy company was celebrating what is ordinarily looked upon as a festive occasion--the eve of the wedding-day. And yet this was the case. To-morrow in the forenoon the young couple were to be married in the church of the university by Doctor Black, and then an hour later they were to leave for the capital, where Franz had important business.