was holding the reins, asked if the
countess would like an umbrella. "Why?" she asked. "It's scarcely
raining at all. Or yes, take it out of the case, the Herr Doctor will
be kind enough to open it."

"May I offer you my arm, Countess?" said Edwin.

Again she did not seem to hear him, but stood gazing into the dark,
silent forest, as if lost in thought. Then she shook back her
hair--Edwin involuntarily thought of the scene in the park the night
before--and took his arm. "Come," she said quietly. "Open the umbrella.
Doesn't this remind you of something? Haven't we walked together in the
rain before? To be sure, it was a long time ago, a whole life lies
between. Don't you think I have altered very much?"

"Certainly. You've accomplished the seemingly impossible; you have
become yet more beautiful."

She looked at him quietly, almost sternly. "Promise me not to say such
a thing again. It doesn't become you, and it wounds me. And don't
address me as 'countess.' I don't know whether I can still venture to
call you 'dear friend' as in old times; but I shouldn't like to have
you treat me precisely the same as an ordinary acquaintance. No, I've
grown old, much older than you suppose, so old that I often think I've
outlived myself, and you must perceive that too. But we won't talk
about that. Only tell me, why did you come here? I knew you would come
sometime; If I'd not been sure of it, who knows whether I should still
be alive! And yet it took me by surprise; for I could never imagine
what was to bring you to me again, after all that--"

She hesitated. He frankly told her of his interview with Marquard, and
that his old interest in her had been vividly awakened by the news that
she was only separated from him by a two hours' drive.

"No, no," she said as if to herself, "that was not it, you don't tell
me all. But as you please; I am weaned from wishing to know things that
are concealed from me. They're rarely pleasant. The more we get to the
bottom of people and things, the uglier they seem to us. Enough, you're
here, and I'm delighted to see you again, though at first I was as much
startled as if your ghost had appeared. More than once--on lonely walks
and in large assemblies--I've fancied I saw you just as you stood in
the hall below me, but it was only a freak of memory. You've not
changed in the least. If I could only forget these four years a moment,
I could fancy we were again walking beside the carp pond and I was