Thus the two friends sat in undecided consultation. The more slanting rays of the sun fell through the tops of the oaks. Alternating in light and shade, the ocean waves played in manifold colours; it was as though a broken rainbow had sunk down into them; here they appeared light green, there deep blue, alternating with violet and reddish tints. A black bank of clouds hung in the west, swallowing up the setting sun more and more, but yonder, where lighter fleecy clouds broke away in smaller portions, it enframed the orb of day in a glowing triumphal portal that cast its radiant reflection into the billows. The sunset was premature, and a sensation of evil portent lay over land and sea. The surf broke more impetuously down below, it was the last echo of a distant storm that beneath the heavy clouds of night winged its flight seawards. How strange was the chattering of the waves upon the shore, and their varied dance. The one dashes upward like a spring of life in vernal green, while the next, heavy as a blue-black monster of the night, rushes over it, and in the whirling foam the lights of the evening sky are blended in a nosegay of tints, which the one wave offers to the other, and which the recipient scatters ruthlessly in the breakers which expire upon the sand of the shore. There, see--a boat leaves the strand, and floats over the foam in the surf. Two girls sit within it; Blanden has recognised Eva. How can she, who has barely recovered from a fever, venture out on the evening tide? And how she sits there, pale, deadly pale, her hands folded, staring into the waves. Then the sun suddenly breaks through the clouds once more, and sheds a bright rosy radiance upon her features. Ave Maria! She resembles the Virgin in the picture, gliding in a boat over the silent mountain lake, and while the bells are pealing in the churches on the coast, folds her hands. But here no bells are ringing--here no Ave Maria is sounded--half-witted Kätchen rows them out to sea. Does she not perceive the stormy clouds on the horizon? But the voice from the heights above can still reach the women sailors, and with all his might Blanden cries-- "Eva!" and, in a warning tone, he calls it once again. She has heard it; she turns to the other side of the boat, she stretches her arms out towards that summit, and then presses them firmly upon her heart; her looks hang as if spell-bound upon the tall oaks, and upon the figure of that friend who stands beneath them. But Kätchen rows on; no sign from Eva bids her turn the skiff; like a rigid marble statue Eva stands erectly in the boat. What her eyes speak he cannot see at that distance; perhaps fresh tears are wrung from them; but he can see that she remains motionless, that no desire to turn hastily fills her soul. It is not the obstinacy of the idiot sailor girl that guides the skiff ever farther out into the sea; it is the mute, proud will of the other, who rejects all chance of meeting him.