She sat again by the willow-hedge where the first green buds of spring were opening, and he stood at her side. All around them brooded the fog, weaving its gray veil over tree and shrub; the rain-drops fell lightly upon the thirsty sod, strange whisperings and echoes thrilled the air, while above all, fell upon their ears the undulating murmurs of the distant Rhine. The present and the real dissolved in nothingness; she knew nothing, felt nothing, but that dumb, inexplicable anguish she had there experienced. She was willessly, powerlessly under the spell of these eyes.
They both started with a sudden tremor, affrighted at the same moment, by an unknown something.
The dream-picture dissolved with its swaying mists and its soft, tender reminiscences of the spring; they were again in that lofty, gloomy apartment of the gray stone castle; inside the fire blazed and crackled, outside, the autumn wind murmured through the trees; perhaps it was the wind that drove a bough against the window, and recalled them from this dream of remembrance. Jane was first to glance out in that direction, and Walter's eyes followed hers.
He walked to the window, opened it wide and bent far out into the darkness, Jane had risen and leaned heavily against the back of the easy chair blazoned with its coat of arms. Now the most difficult thing was to come! He must learn that which to her was no longer a subject of doubt.
"I will see whether he is able to bear it." Perhaps only the voice of nature spoke in this tenderness; perhaps--there was a convulsive shudder at her heart--"he will smile at the discovery. Well, then, if he can bear it, I will not betray my weakness even though I should die at my brother's first kiss!"
Walter had closed the window, and now came back to her. "It is nothing," he said calmly. "Who could have interest enough in our affairs to watch us?" Jane knew already the way in which she had to go; she entered upon it with unfaltering step.
Walter started back and glanced at her in consternation.
That deep glow, sudden and fiery, again mounted his face, until it covered forehead and temples.
"And he is not a stranger to you, this man? I thought it must be so the first moment I met him--Johanna--" his voice trembled in feverish excitement--"and what relation does Alison stand to you? What right has he over you?"