hed his hair, and brushed the dust from his
coat--"and though her eyes should look down upon me from every window
in Starnberg," he cried, "I will ride through the town and laugh at all
these apparitions!"

So he swung himself into the saddle again, and rode over the few
remaining miles of his journey at a sharp trot. When at last a blue
strip of the lake sparkled through the tree-tops, and the houses of the
town came into view, a gray, starlit twilight had already settled down;
so that, after all, he could ride through the streets between the rows
of lighted windows, without any fear of being recognized.

Nevertheless, it was almost a relief to him when, upon inquiry at all
of the three inns, he was told that no room could be had for the night.
He thought at once of Rossel's little country house, of which he had
often heard his friends speak. As the way was described to him, he
could still arrive there in good time, and before his friends had gone
to bed. So he contented himself with a hasty drink after his sultry
ride through the woods, handed over his animal to a hostler, who
promised to take good care of it, and got under way again.

He had not had the heart to inquire for Irene's villa, though he had
thought for a moment of doing so--only that he might avoid it all the
more surely. But he did not allow her name to pass his lips. Clinching
his teeth, he went his way, past the garden fences and walls. The warm
night had enticed every living thing out into the open air. Under the
vines and in the summer-houses, on garden-benches and on balconies, old
and young sat, walked, and stood; and here and there one could hear the
clear but subdued sound of girlish laughter, as it suddenly burst forth
from whispered conversations or deep silence, like a rocket that starts
instantly from a humble fire-work into the dark heaven of night. Some
one was playing a cither, to which a man's voice sang a low
accompaniment; from another house a full soprano voice sang Schubert's
Erl King, to the loud music of a piano; and from yet another was heard
a violin concerto, with a clarionet _obbligato_. All harmonized as well
as the different voices of the birds in the woods, for the sounds were
softened and melted into one another by the sultry night air.
Involuntarily Felix stood still and listened.

As chance would have it, his eyes rested on a little house from which
came no sound of song or music, and which was overhung with exquisite