John,' she said, 'if death were sitting on that pile of stones, I
would alight! I do not blame, I thank you; I now know how I appear to
others; but sooner than draw breath beside a man who can so think of me,
I would--O!' she cried, and was silent.

Sir John pulled the string, alighted, and offered her his hand; but she
refused the help.

The road had now issued from the valleys in which it had been winding,
and come to that part of its course where it runs, like a cornice, along
the brow of the steep northward face of Grunewald. The place where they
had alighted was at a salient angle; a bold rock and some wind-tortured
pine-trees overhung it from above; far below the blue plains lay forth
and melted into heaven; and before them the road, by a succession of bold
zigzags, was seen mounting to where a tower upon a tall cliff closed the
view.

'There,' said the Baronet, pointing to the tower, 'you see the
Felsenburg, your goal. I wish you a good journey, and regret I cannot be
of more assistance.'

He mounted to his place and gave a signal, and the carriage rolled away.

Seraphina stood by the wayside, gazing before her with blind eyes. Sir
John she had dismissed already from her mind: she hated him, that was
enough; for whatever Seraphina hated or contemned fell instantly to
Lilliputian smallness, and was thenceforward steadily ignored in thought.
And now she had matter for concern indeed. Her interview with Otto,
which she had never yet forgiven him, began to appear before her in a
very different light. He had come to her, still thrilling under recent
insult, and not yet breathed from fighting her own cause; and how that
knowledge changed the value of his words! Yes, he must have loved her!
this was a brave feeling--it was no mere weakness of the will. And she,
was she incapable of love? It would appear so; and she swallowed her
tears, and yearned to see Otto, to explain all, to ask pity upon her
knees for her transgressions, and, if all else were now beyond the reach
of reparation, to restore at least the liberty of which she had deprived
him.

Swiftly she sped along the highway, and, as the road wound out and in
about the bluffs and gullies of the mountain, saw and lost by glimpses
the tall tower that stood before and above her, purpled by the mountain
air.

CHAPTER II--TREATS OF A CHRISTIAN VIRTUE

When Otto mounted to his rolling prison he found another occupant in a
corner of the front seat