And at this moment, when the heavens opened before his enraptured eyes and he gazed into the region of the blest--at this moment the blow was to fall, which closed the gates of the Paradise of his youth forever, and destroyed for years his faith in the sacred feeling that dwells securely in the human breast. "Some one is coming on horseback," old Boslaf said, approaching the group, and pointing towards the forest. No one else perceived anything; but that proved nothing, for the old man could hear the grass grow. Cecilia started up, went forward a few steps, and paused to listen, and Gotthold saw her press her hand upon her heart. His own stood still. He and Curt had not been to Dollan during the weeks before the examination, now successfully passed, and he had heard nothing of all that had happened there except that one day Curt casually mentioned that Carl Brandow had returned; but now he knew everything. The horse, whose rapid hoof-beats he also distinguished, was not bearing Carl Brandow over the miles that intervened between Dollan and Dahlitz for the first time. Now he knew what the altered expression of her features, which had attracted his attention that day, meant--the dreamy softness that suddenly yielded to a strange excitement; he knew all, all,--that his temple was ruined, his sanctuary profaned. He stood apart, unable to move, while the others surrounded the rider, who had swung himself from his horse,--the slender rider, who now disengaged himself from the group--but not alone! They passed close by without noticing him, he with his arm thrown around her waist, bending down and whispering to her, she nestling to his side, every line in their figures clearly relieved against the bright moonlight; then he saw and heard nothing more, and afterwards could only remember that he lay long in a dull, terrible despair, in a place far from that spot, on the edge of the dark forest, and then started up and staggered through the silent, sultry woods as if in a horrible dream, sometimes crying aloud like a tortured animal, until he at last emerged from them upon the shore of the sea, which stretched before him in a vast, boundless expanse in the shimmering moonlight. Here he again threw himself down on the sand, but now tears came to his relief--burning tears which, however, flowed more and more gently, as if the lapping of the waves was a lullaby to the poor quivering heart. At last he rose to his knees, extended his arms, and in a long, fervent prayer, to which the roaring of the sea murmured an accompaniment, told the universal mother, who will never desert her child, that he would always love her with boundless affection. Just then old Boslaf suddenly stood beside him,--he had not heard his approach, nor did the old man say anything,--and they walked silently along the strand until they reached the old man's lonely little house among the downs. There he made him a rude couch carefully and silently, and mutely smoothed his damp hair