ing some traces. They had so estranged him, even from that
one person to whom he had then loved to unbosom himself, that, after
the first outburst of his old tenderness, a steady medium temperature
had set in in the relations of the two old friends, that was scarcely a
degree warmer than that between Jansen and the other members of the
little circle. During the long hours that the pupil spent working at
his master's side, there were hundreds of opportunities to talk
over old times. But the sculptor seemed to avoid all recollections
of the past. Then, they had made no secret to one another of their
love-affairs; and now Felix made several attempts to return to the
subject of his late betrothal. But, when he did this, it was as if some
dark spectre rose up before Jansen. He sought to give the conversation
a general direction with some bitter sarcasm or forced jest, and soon
relapsed into more sullen silence than before.

Felix felt how heavily this cool reserve weighed on his spirits, which
would have been none too light even without it. After the shipwreck of
his happy love, he had tried to fall back upon this friendship; and
now, though he had indeed found firm ground, it was no longer the green
island of his youth, but bare and inhospitable; and the soil, which was
then so yielding, had turned to rugged rock.

One evening, as he was walking down the Briennerstrasse, alone, and not
in the most cheerful spirits, he met the beautiful stranger, who now
visited Angelica daily, but who was jealously guarded by the latter
from all other eyes. She appeared to be returning home from a walk, and
her old servant walked a few steps behind her, carrying her shawl.
Felix bowed to her, and she distantly returned his salute. She
evidently had not recognized him. Then he saw her enter the house, and
soon afterward the corner-room on the ground-floor was lit up by the
light of a lamp. It would have been easy for him to watch her
proceedings through the low window. But he did not care at all to do
so, though he admired her beauty. For no beautiful, no charming face
could cross his path without carrying his thoughts back to his lost
love, and plunging him in a melancholy reverie.

And so it was to-day. And suddenly it struck him as so absurd and
idiotic for him to be wandering about alone in this utterly strange
city, among people who cared nothing for him, separated from her who
was his only love, that he could not help bursting out in