Oldenburg went across the room and took his riding-whip and gloves from the console under the mirror. As he came back again to Melitta he stopped, and said: "Good-night, Melitta!" "Good-night!" replied the proud woman, without raising her eyes. He waited for a moment, and for another moment, hoping that she would look at him or say a word--but in vain. Not a word, not a sigh, rose from his crushed heart; he went to the door, opened it gently, and closed it as noiselessly again. Melitta started. She hastened to the door; but instead of opening it she only leaned with uplifted arms against it and wept passionately. "I knew it would come thus," she murmured. "Poor, poor Adalbert!" Suddenly she heard a horse's foot-fall close by the window. She ran from the door to the window and opened it, she leaned far out and cried "Adalbert! Adalbert!" but the storm that drove the icy snow-flakes in her face swept away her voice, and the black shadow of horse and rider, which was but just now gliding noiselessly over the white plain and through the gray night, was at the next moment no longer to be distinguished. CHAPTER X. Winter has come during the night to the island, and still the snow-storm rages; and the countless flakes, swept down by its swift wings from northern lands, fall thick upon roofs and trees, upon meadows and fields; and one who looked for a time into the darkling air, from which the white stars are dropping forever, felt as if he were rising upward with moderate rapidity--up and up, into the gray boundless space. Oldenburg seemed to-day to enjoy the melancholy sight to his heart's content. He is standing by the window in his study at the Solitude, and looks fixedly at the sea, or rather at the snow-filled air, for of the sea little or nothing can be seen to-day. He has been standing there many hours to-day, and scarcely noticed Herrman, who comes and goes with mournful mien, and packs several large trunks which stand open about the room, filling them with clothes and linen and books. The good servant's good wife Thusnelda, the comfortable fat housekeeper, has repeatedly bustled into the room under some pretext or other, and once actually dared to ask her master if he would not come to dinner. But he had only replied, "Very well, my good woman."