d despairing,
looking into his own.

Several minutes went by before either of them spoke. It was Hartmut who
broke the silence finally.

"You here, my dear madame?" he asked, forcing himself to speak quietly.
"Why are you abroad in such unseemly weather?"

Adelheid looked at the weapon which had fallen at her feet and
shuddered.

"I might ask you the same question," she answered.

"I started out for a hunt, but this is no day for sport. I was just
emptying my gun, when you--"

He did not finish, for her pained, reproving glance told him that all
subterfuge was useless--he broke off and gazed gloomily before him.
Adelheid too, abandoned any attempt at an ordinary conversation. Her
voice was trembling and her face white as death, as she said: "Herr von
Falkenried--God help us, what would you have done?"

"That which would have been finished now, had you not interfered," said
Hartmut, in a hard tone. "Believe me, dear madame, it would have been
better if accident had brought you here five minutes later."

"It was no accident. I was at the Rodeck forestry and heard that you had
been gone several hours; a terrible suspicion took possession of me and
drove me to follow you. I was almost certain I should find you here."

"You were seeking me? Me, Ada?" His voice trembled with emotion as he
asked the question. "How did you learn that I was at the forestry?"

"Through Prince Adelsberg, who was with me to-day. You received a letter
from him this morning?"

"No, only some intelligence," responded Hartmut, with drawn lips. "The
few short lines contained no word directed personally to me, only
business, only a communication which the prince thought necessary to
make--I understood it!"

Adelheid was silent; she had felt sure that those few lines would be as
death to him. Slowly she stepped toward him in the shadow of a great
tree, the wind blew so fiercely that it was a necessity to have such
protection as the trees could afford; Hartmut did not seem to notice
its increasing fury.

"I see that you know what those few lines contained," he began again,
"but it was not new to you. You heard it all at Rodeck. Ada, when I saw
you standing in the shimmering, ghostly light on that frightful night,
and knew that you had seen me trampled in the dust--even my own father,
who loathes me, would have been satisfied with my punishment."

"You do him injustice," said Frau von Wallmoden, earnestly. "You saw him
only when he was thr