He would have held himself aloof from her, but that was impossible; she regarded him not as a stranger, but as her cousin Leo's dearest friend, of whom he had talked so much and so often that she felt thoroughly at home and at her ease in his society, and she treated him with a frank familiarity that was irresistibly attractive to him, and the influence of which he could not resist. Often, as they walked fearlessly along the brink of frightful abysses, he remembered his despairing desire to end a life that could offer him no future save pain and anguish. As he talked gayly with Hilda such thoughts would assail him; he would pause for an instant and gaze with longing into the blue depths. Why should he live on? Eva and Leo were reconciled. All that remained for him to do was to break the tie between Eva and Bertram and his work in the world would be at an end. But as he wandered on at Hilda's side the spell that her presence threw around him would inevitably exert its power; gloomy thoughts would be banished, and the love of life and all that makes life fair would stir strongly again within him, although he deceived himself into the belief that his only desire was to live until Leo's happiness should be secured and Dr. Putzer be sufficiently recovered to tell him all that he feared to learn. Convinced that after at most a few more days he should be separated from Hilda forever, he at last resigned himself utterly to the enchantment of her presence, unaware of how her constant society fed and increased the love which he felt for her. Consequently he grew calmer; the feverish excitement which drove him to indulge in extravagant merriment subsided: he took cheerful part in the general conversation; and when they rested after some long ascent at the wished-for point of view, he could thoroughly enjoy both the enthusiasm of the others and the glories of the landscape. Still, when at the end of the day the entire party would sit discussing their expedition, upon the balcony, Paul was apt to fall into a gloomy revery from which it needed a word from Hilda to rouse him. Thus the days and weeks passed at Tausens with very little change, and no one divined what was going on in the mind of him to whom all turned for enjoyment and sympathy. One person however suspected that Delmar was by no means so careless as he seemed. Guido von Bertram watched him keenly whenever he had an opportunity, with many a misgiving that a storm was gathering above his head. When it would break he could not tell, and he racked his brains for some means whereby he might escape it. The ex-lieutenant played but a sorry part in Tausens. When he returned from his mountain-expedition, on the day of Herwarth's betrothal, he found the entire party assembled upon the balcony, for Leo and Hilda had despatched a messenger to the castle to inform Herr von Heydeck that they should not return until late in the evening.