e first time I was absolutely startled by the loveliness of the view.
The shining Bodden with its bays and little islands lay beneath us, to
the north was the sea, to the west the sea, to the east, right away on
the other side of distant Ruegen, the sea; far in the south rose the
towers of Stralsund; close behind us a forest of young pines filled the
air with warm waves of fragrance; at our feet the turf was thick with
flowers,--oh, wide and splendid world! How good it is to look sometimes
across great spaces, to lift one's eyes from narrowness, to feel the
large silence that rests on lonely hills! Motionless we stood before
this sudden unrolling of the beauty of God's earth. The place seemed
full of a serene and mighty Presence. Far up near the clouds a solitary
lark was singing its joys. There was no other sound.

I believe if I had not been with him the Professor would again have
forgotten Charlotte, and lying down on the flowery turf with his eyes on
that most beautiful of views have given himself over to abstractions.
But I stopped him at the very moment when he was preparing to sink to
the ground. 'No, no,' I besought, 'don't sit down.'

'Not sit? And why, then, shall not a warm old man sit?'

'First let us find Charlotte.' At the bare mention of the name he began
to run.

The inn servant had said Charlotte had gone up to the lighthouse. From
where we were we could not see it, but hurrying through a corner of the
pine-wood we came out on the north end of Hiddensee, and there it was on
the edge of the cliff. Then my heart began to beat with mingled
feelings--exultation that I should be on the verge of doing so much
good, fear lest my plan by some fatal mishap should be spoilt, or, if it
succeeded, my actions be misjudged. 'Wait a moment,' I murmured faintly,
laying a trembling hand on the Professor's arm. 'Dear Professor, wait a
moment--Charlotte must be quite close now--I don't want to intrude on
you both at first, so please, will you give her this letter'--and I
pulled it with great difficulty, it being fat and my fingers shaky, out
of my pocket, the eloquent letter I had written in the dawn at
Stubbenkammer, and pressed it into his hand,--'give it to her with my
love--with my very dear love.'

'Yes, yes,' said the Professor, impatient of these speeches, and only
desirous of getting on. He crushed the letter unquestioningly into his
pocket and we resumed our hurried walking. The footpath led us across a
flow