He had so longed for Dollan when, contrary to the doctor's expectation, he recovered his consciousness after a fainting fit which, a few days after the accident on the race-course, suddenly attacked him as he sat surrounded by his friends. "Gratify the old man's wish," said the physician, "and do so quickly; he will not have many more. His days are numbered, and it is our duty to procure for him, during the few that remain, all the sunshine he misses so keenly here in the narrow crowded streets." And with deep thankfulness the old man greeted the sunlight on his native fields. Not that he expressed his gratitude in words. He usually talked very little; but on his pale, quiet face rested an expression of the deepest peace, his mild eyes often sparkled as if with joyful memories, and a happy smile played around his lips, as he walked slowly through the sunny fields by Cecilia's side, leaning on her arm. Often too--especially in the early morning--he went out alone, and Cecilia had been anxious about him, and at last ventured to beg him to take her with him, no hour was too early for her. But the old man stroked her cheeks, and said, "Let me alone; you don't know yet." Cecilia pondered over these strange words, and understood them for the first time when, one morning at early dawn, she looked out of her window, and saw the old man stand a long time in the garden beside one of the oldest trees--a linden, under whose shade, so the story ran, Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had sat--and then bend his white head and wave his hand, as people do when they take leave of any one. Yes, the old man was taking his leave, when he wandered alone through garden and field, forest and meadow--leave of the friends and acquaintances of his youth: here a tree, under whose branches he had dreamed of the woman he loved; yonder a rock, against whose hard breast he had once pressed his tortured young heart; the meadow where he had broken the wild steed with which he had hoped to win the beautiful Ulrica von Dahlitz; the forest whose echoes he had so often waked by the report of his good rifle. He never carried it now: the trusty gun that had formerly accompanied him in all his walks, rested quietly in the corner; he had taken leave of his faithful companion forever. Neither did he ever turn his steps in the direction of the beach-house, and once when he had wandered through the forest by Cecilia's side, and they unexpectedly emerged from the trees upon the cliffs, he seemed almost terrified, and then shook his venerable head and muttered: "That has cost me many years, many, many years!" So saying, he made a gesture as if to imply that those years were effaced from the tablet of his memory.