, looked at him in
a frightened and confused way, and informed him in a soft, subdued
voice that the lieutenant had gone out very early in the morning; when
he would be back she did not know. He sometimes staid away whole days
at a time; this time, besides, he had said something to her about
taking a ride into the mountains. So Felix was forced to restrain his
impatience. But he felt quite incapable of going to his work as usual.
He lounged about the streets for hours, regardless of the heat and
dust. He carefully scanned every horseman whom he met, and every
carriage from which he saw a veil waving; and a girl's head, turning
about with restless curiosity to see all that was going on, caused his
heart to beat until he had convinced himself it was not the dreaded,
and yet secretly so longed-for, face--for which he sought thus
earnestly only that it might not take him too much by surprise.

On the following day he continued his aimless wanderings, at first on
foot, through all the picture galleries, and in the afternoon in a
drosky, in which he rattled through the Au suburb, the English Garden,
and, finally, the Nymphenburg and the deer park, until his panting
horse landed him, toward evening, at one of the suburban theatres; for
there was still a bare possibility that the travelers would feel a
desire to see the "Pfarrer von Kirchfeld," which happened to be the
sensation of the hour.

All these hopes were doomed to disappointment. Half tired out and half
angry with himself, he left the theatre at the close of the first act,
and strolled back to his lodgings by the most unfrequented streets he
could find. There he found a line from Jansen, who had been alarmed at
his long absence.

"It is true," he laughed bitterly to himself, "such an old apprentice
as I am ought to know the value of his time better than to cut school
for two days. What is the good of it all, except to give one tired legs
and a heavy head? And, if I really had found her, what then? We should
have stared at one another like total strangers, and hurried out of one
another's sight."

He threw himself on the sofa, and mechanically reached out his hand for
one of the books that lay upon the table. As he did so he noticed that
he had taken up with it a fine red hair, and this recalled his thoughts
to the night when he had given up this room to Zenz.

"What a fool I was!" he muttered between his teeth. "If I had not
driven the good creature away from me,