know
that she is nothing to me; when I am with her, I feel only the spell of
her sorrow. Once, when I had to depart out of her circle like a culprit,
she came to me, and before the whole scornful assembly she gave me her
hand and acknowledged me her friend; and now she comes and asks for my
hand to help her father. Can I refuse it? Is it wrong to feel as I do? I
know not, and no one can tell me--no one but you alone."

Sabine's head had sunk down to the back of the chair on which she bent.
She now suddenly raised it, and with tearful eyes, and a voice full of
love and sorrow, cried, "Follow the voice that calls you. Go, Wohlfart,
go."

CHAPTER XXVII.

On a cold October day, two men were seen driving through the latticed
gate of the town of Rosmin on toward the plain, which stretched out
before them monotonous and boundless. Anton sat wrapped in his fur coat,
his hat low on his forehead, and at his side was young Sturm, in an old
cavalry cloak, with his soldier's cap cocked cheerily on one side. In
front of them a farm-servant, squatted on a heap of straw, flogged on
the small horses. The wind swept the sand and straw from the
stubble-fields, the road was a broad causeway without ditches or hedges,
the horses had to wade alternately through puddles and deep sand. Yellow
sand gleamed through the scanty herbage in all directions wherever a
field-mouse had made her way to her nest or an active mole had done what
he could to diversify the unbroken plain. Wherever the ground sank,
stagnant water lodged, and there hollow willow-trees stretched their
crippled arms in the air, their boughs flapping in the wind, and their
faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there
stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by
the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the travelers' heads.
There was no house to be seen on the road, no pedestrian, and no
conveyance of any kind.

Karl looked every now and then at his silent companion, and said at
last, pointing to the horses, "How rough their coats are, and how pretty
their gray mouse skins! I wonder how many of these beasties would go to
make up my sergeant's horse! When I took leave of my father, the old man
said, 'Perhaps I shall pay you a visit, little one, when they light the
Christmas-tree.' 'You'll never be able,' said I. 'Why not?' asked he.
'You'll never trust yourself in any post-chaise.' Then the old boy
cried, 'Oho!