"She will not come," Edwin said to himself, after pacing up and down
once or twice under his umbrella. "The weather is too disagreeable.
Besides, perhaps she knows the contents of the Count's letter only too
well, and it was merely a gentle way of getting rid of me. Then--what
am I to do then. Did she expect me in that case, to open the letter and
read what she could not tell me?"--He drew the note from his pocket and
again glanced at the address: "'Mademoiselle Antoinette Marchand.' No,
if she does not come, has not the courage to come--the fish yonder
shall keep the secret."

At this moment a carriage rolled along the avenue and stopped before
the open space at the end of the pond. The striped waistcoat swung
himself down from the box, and out sprang the beautiful girl, wrapped
in a long black silk cloak, with the hood drawn over her head like a
nun, looking, with her sparkling eyes and slightly flushed cheeks, more
lovely than ever. She nodded to Edwin from the distance and smiled so
frankly that all his doubts suddenly vanished, and he secretly begged
her pardon for them.

"I've kept you waiting," she said, as she hung lightly on his arm. "But
my coachman made _me_ wait. I suppose he did not think the weather
suitable for driving. However, I am here now, and it's all the better
that it rains; no one will disturb us; I shall not be interrupted in my
confession and my 'wise friend's' moralizing and head-shaking will have
no hindrance."

"Have I ever shown a decided inclination that way?"

"No, but I fear when you know me better--! True, it is said: 'that
which can be comprehended can be forgiven.' But how are you to
understand me? Hitherto you have taken me for heaven knows who, at any
rate, for some very peculiar person, with good reasons for keeping her
incognito. Now when you learn how simply everything can be explained,
won't you think it your duty to guide me back to the paths of wisdom
and self-sacrifice, which will lead me straight to an early grave? If I
had not seen this conclusion foreshadowed so plainly, how gladly I'd
have told you long ago what you're now to hear for the first time!"

"Try me and see whether I'm not less stern than my vocation," he forced
himself to reply in a jesting tone. "I, like you, am no adept in
self-denial, where I feel that I have to assert a natural right, and
therefore I lack the first requisites of a moralist. What a foolish awe
you have of a poor private tutor! I know