In Gaspard's apartment Augusti suddenly left him to announce him, and--leave him, alone. Through his life rolled now a slow thunder; whether it came from heaven, from a stream, or only from a mill, as yet he knew not. Julienne burst in, weeping, unable to speak for the violent beating of her heart. "Thou art going away?" asked she. "Yes!" said he, and besought her to be less passionate; for he knew how easily another's impetuosity set him on fire, as he could not even play chess or fence, for any length of time, without becoming angry. She entreated him still more passionately only to stay till Gaspard came back. "Is he coming back?" asked Albano. "How otherwise? But not the unworthy bride," said she. "Julienne," replied he, seriously, "O, be not as hard against her as fate has been, and let me be silent!" "I hate now all men, and thee, too," said she. "That comes of your poetical souls. O, what honest bride would have let herself so easily be blinded by such a suicide? Who? But I see thou dost not know all." "But is it of any use?" he asked. Surprised at this question, she began without reply the narration:-- On the day when Albano found Schoppe, Julienne would fain visit again her friend Linda whom she had not seen since the evening of the tragedy. All apartments in Lilar were closely curtained against daylight. Julienne found her sitting in darkness, with downcast, half-open eyelids, outwardly very tranquil, only at long intervals a little tear stole out from her eyes. The sweeping stream went high over the wheels of her life and they stood far under it and still. "Is it thou, Julienne?" she said, softly. "Pardon the darkness; night is green now, to my eyes. It pains me to see anything." The bridal torch of her existence was quenched; she wished now night for night. Julienne put anxious questions of astonishment; she gave no answer to them. "Is there any trouble between thee and my brother?" asked Julienne, in whom relationship always created a warmer concern than friendship. "Only wait for the Knight," answered she; "I have sent an entreaty to him to come hither." Just at that moment he entered. She begged him to accommodate himself to this short night. After some silence, she rose proudly from her seat; her black-dressed, tall form raised, in the presence of the Knight, whom she saw not, its great eyes to heaven, her proud life, hitherto enveloped in the winding-sheet, flung back the cloth and rose, blooming, from the dead, and she addressed the Knight: "Respected Gaspard, you promised me, as also did my father, that he would appear to me on my marriage day. The day is gone by. I am a widow: now let him appear to me." Here the Knight interrupted her: "Gone by? O quite right! Is he, then, anything more discreet and moral than a man?" and jested, contrary to his usual manner, with a glow of indignation, because he supposed it was of Albano, whom he had so long trusted, that she was speaking.