ged down into the depths to-day, haven't you?' And
she straightened herself from bending over the bag, a brush in each
hand, and looking at me with a most bitter and defiant smile
incontinently began to cry.

'Don't cry, Charlotte,' I said, who had been dumbly staring, 'don't cry,
my dear. I didn't see any depths. I only saw nice things. Don't go to
Berlin--stay here and let us be happy together.'

'Stay here? Never!' And she feverishly crammed things into her bag, and
the bag must have been at least as full of tears as of other things, for
she cried bitterly the whole time.

Well, women have always been a source of wonderment to me, myself
included, who am for ever hurled in the direction of foolishness, for
ever unable to stop; and never are they so mysterious, so wholly
unaccountable, as in their relations to their husbands. But who shall
judge them? The paths of fate are all so narrow that two people bound
together, forced to walk abreast, cannot, except they keep perfect step,
but push each other against the rocks on either side. So that it behoves
the weaker and the lighter, if he would remain unbruised, to be very
attentive, very adaptable, very deft.

I saw Charlotte off in one of the waiting waggonettes that was to take
her to Sassnitz where the railway begins. 'I'll let you know where I
am,' she called out as she was rattled away down the hill; and with a
wave of the hand she turned the corner and vanished from my sight, gone
once more into those frozen regions where noble and forlorn persons
pursue ideals.

Walking back slowly through the trees towards the cliffs I met the
Professor looking everywhere for his wife. 'What time does Lot leave?'
he cried when he saw me. 'Must she really go?'

'She is gone.'

'No! How long since?'

'About ten minutes.'

'Then I too take that train.'

And he hurried off, clambering with the nimbleness that was all his own
into a second waggonette, and disappeared in his turn down the hill.
'Dearest little cousin,' he shouted just before being whisked round the
corner, 'permit me to bid thee farewell and wish thee good luck. I shall
seriously endeavour to remember thee this time.'

'Do,' I called back, smiling; but he could not have heard.

Once again I slowly walked through the trees to the cliffs. The highest
of these cliffs, the Koenigsstuhl, jutting out into the sea forms a
plateau where a few trees that have weathered the winter storms of many
years stand in li