elf-possession returned, and she said very
coldly:

"I thank you, Herr Rojanow, but your solicitude was altogether
unnecessary. You should have reflected that the duchess would not have
allowed me to remain unsought in the wood had so serious an accident
occurred. I sent her word I was on my way to Bucheneck."

She would have passed by him now, but as he stepped aside, he said in a
low voice:

"My dear madame--I have to beg your pardon."

"My pardon--for what?"

"For the favor for which I plead so hard and injudiciously. I only asked
for a flower. Is my crime then so great that your anger must last for
weeks?"

Adelheid remained standing, almost without knowing it. She was again
under the influence of those eyes and that wonderful voice.

"You are mistaken, Herr Rojanow," she responded. "I am not angry with
you."

"No? And yet you assume again that icy tone which is ever yours when I
am near you, and now that you have heard my drama you make no sign of
approval. You were present when I read it at Fuerstenstein. I heard words
of praise on all sides. Your lips alone were closed. From you I received
no single word of commendation--will you deny it to me now?"

"I thought we were out for a hunt, to-day," said Adelheid evasively,
"and this is neither the time nor the place to discuss poetry."

"We have both left the hunt for to-day; it's on its way now toward the
Rodecker heights. Here is the true forest loneliness. Look at the
perfect autumn landscape around us. It speaks to the heart of peace and
forgiveness. Look at that placid sheet of water, a those heavy
storm-laden clouds against the horizon--to me there is more poetry in
this than in the crowded salons of Fuerstenstein."

The aspect of the landscape had entirely changed since the morning
hours, and a dull, gloomy light had taken the place of the bright, clear
sunshine, beneath whose gleams the cavalcade had set forth so merrily.

The endless stretch of forest which lay before them was in its gayest
autumn dress, but in the sombre light of the approaching storm, its
brilliant leaves looked faded and faint. The deep reds and many tinted
yellows of the foliage formed a beautiful picture, but these were the
colors of decay and death, and told that the end of their life and bloom
was not far distant.

Beneath them lay the little lake, dark and motionless, surrounded by
high grasses and swamp reeds. It looked like another lonely sheet of
water in the far n