This determination he carried out during the ensuing weeks. He could do so all the more easily by reason of the part which he was compelled to play with regard to the rest of the party. Herwarth, and Leo who came daily with Hilda from the castle to join in excursions among the mountains, took no notice whatever of Eva's betrothed. They never even looked at him, and Aline only spoke to him when common courtesy required that she should do so. Eva did not hold herself so entirely aloof; she preserved towards Bertram the same cold politeness that she had always shown him, allowing him to call her by her first name, although she never addressed him otherwise than as Herr von Bertram. All familiar approach on his part she repelled by a frigid reserve. Bertram was made to feel that the slightest attempt to assert his rights as her betrothed would be fruitless, and he could not but see how much more familiar was her manner towards Delmar, Herwarth, and even Leo than towards himself. Warned by his enemy, Guido never ventured to take part in the daily excursions. He made one of the party only at breakfast, dinner, and supper, and here Delmar endured his society no longer than he thought absolutely necessary. If, at the end of an hour at most, Bertram made any attempt to join in the general conversation, Delmar was sure to make some remark which contained a command to leave in disguise,--a command which the former dragoon hastened to obey. His observation, quickened by terror, told him that at the first sign of rebellion against his enemy's authority the storm which he so dreaded would burst above his devoted head. In these last few weeks Paul had greatly changed. Often when the others were conversing eagerly he would sit gazing dreamily out upon the distant mountains, in a way very unlike himself. When he roused himself from such brooding reveries, Bertram almost always caught an angry glance from his dark eyes, which convinced him more and more that he meditated striking a blow at his prospects, and that, for some hidden reason, his hand was stayed for the moment. He guessed that this blow was the breaking of his engagement with Eva, for any one could see the pleasure Delmar took in the growing intimacy between Leo and Fräulein Schommer, and that he would gladly remove any obstacle to their happiness. The firmer this conviction became in Guido's mind the more was he strengthened in his resolve to insure his own future by the possession of the ebony casket, and he availed himself of every opportunity for the private interviews he had contrived with Nanette. Almost every evening they met in his room, and to his great satisfaction he saw that he was gradually destroying in her frivolous mind all mistrust of him, although every evening when she left him he still heard the low creaking of the bolt as it was pushed into its staples, and Eva's door remained not only closed to him but fast bolted. CHAPTER XVI.