it so strangely--you'll laugh at me, Heinz, but I think I
should be instantly cured, if my only friend, my wise, proud, sad
little wife--"

"Then let's go to her at once and tell her so! Besides, I've not yet
taken leave of her. And it's so early--"

"No!" interrupted Edwin with restless anxiety, "she'll not expect us. I
left farewell messages for our neighbors too. Come, my boy. I don't
know why it is, but I can't rest till I get out into the woods and
fields again. Your bill here is already settled. Of course the 'Star'
is only an addition to our tun in case distinguished travelers arrive,
whom we cannot entertain under our own roof."

He hastily helped him to pack his traveling satchel and hurried him
away. Just as they left the house, they saw the hotel stage returning,
which daily at this hour brought the travelers from the railway. A
lady, closely veiled, who must have just arrived by the night train,
sat leaning back in one corner of this lumbering vehicle. As she passed
the two pedestrians, she made a hasty gesture, as if she recognised
some one, but instantly drew back again.

Edwin started. "Did you notice--?" he said quickly.

"What?"

"In the stage--the veiled lady--I thought for a moment, that I
recognized--by her way of bending forward--"

"You see ghosts, my dear fellow. Duchesses travel with a suit of
retainers, not in an omnibus."

"You're right! Yes indeed, I'm a fool. What could bring her here. But
that's the cross I bear every moment. If a carriage rattles by--a door
opens--ah! Nature, which made me a philosopher, failed to provide one
essential--a suitable dose of the famous ataraxia."

"That's unfortunately true," replied Mohr, shrugging his shoulders.
"But your clever wife is right--the plant grows out of doors among the
mountains and by the streams. But I too am not wholly insensible, and
most earnestly beseech you not to seize me so convulsively, at least
before I've breakfasted. We'll attend to this matter at the first
stopping place, and then I'll sing you the old Eichendorff traveler's
song, which Christiane has set to a very pretty air:

"'Through fields and rows of beech trees,
Now singing, anon still,
How joyous he, who leaves his home
To wander at his will. '"

CHAPTER V.

Meantime Leah, absorbed in grief, was still sitting at the window, from
which in the pale morning light she had waved a