It serves you right! he murmured. Why did you let yourself be led by the nose once more, when you ought to have known perfectly well how it would end? And yet! She was so sweet, so kind all these days; she has never been so before. Could I close my ear to the siren-song that never sounded nearer or dearer to me? Siren-song--that it is! What do women know of the true love which men feel in their hearts? All is caprice with them--idle play and vanity. A pair of blue eyes, a smooth tongue, and courteous ways, and you have the doll that pleases good little children. They do not ask whether the little doll has a heart in her bosom, or brains in her head. On the contrary, that might be inconvenient, tedious; that would not suit the nursery. Well, let it be, then! Let me lay aside the fool's cap forever and for aye! As the evening twilight darkens yonder on the rocks, I will wipe off this rosy illusion from my soul and grow rough like the wintry sea; and as nobody loves me, I will love nobody in return. I will go through life lonely, as that snowbird is winging his way through the pathless air, and not even ask whether he has prepared for himself a sheltering nest under some overhanging cliff on the coast. "That you will not do! You are a man; and a man is a great deal more than the birds under the heavens." Oldenburg turned round in amazement, to see who it was that could have spoken these words in such a calm, firm tone. Close behind him stood old Baumann. "I come," said the old man, answering Oldenburg's anxiously inquiring looks, "by order of Frau von Berkow." "What is it?" said Oldenburg, his blood rushing madly to his heart; "speak out! Frau von Berkow is ill, is she?" "Not Frau von Berkow," replied Baumann; "another woman, who came about an hour ago to our house, with a child, and who wishes to see the baron once more before her death, which seems not to be very far off." "A woman--with a child!" It seemed as if a veil had fallen from the baron's eyes. "Come!" he said.