A loud footfall behind her made her look around. Franz the miller, with an iron crowbar over his shoulder, was passing by, to look after the upper weir, he said. His presence sent the blood to her cheeks and scared her from her post of observation. While Franz hurried on she walked slowly along the bank of the stream. She could not yet make up her mind to return to the villa; her toilette for the evening would be completed long before Henriette, who was determined to be present at the fête, had half finished the adornments which were to make the ravages of disease less conspicuous.
The solitude here was so delicious; there was no one to see how red her eyes were, or how angrily her wayward heart was battling with the sinful desires that had urged her hither,—yes, they had been the cause of her coming. She would not spare herself or lie to her own soul! She had not come to see the quiet house, and the dear old friend whose home it was, and she had not been sure that he was not there. She had hoped—what? And when another face than his had appeared at the window the whole place had been to her lonely and deserted.
Franz had vanished in the distance. She was approaching the ruin. The circle of water about it glistened, and through the shrubbery she could see the graceful bridge spanning the ditch. At the moment a man was crossing it from the tower. A thick reddish beard covered the lower part of his face; he wore a labourer’s blouse, and was driving two roes before him with his stick. They leaped across the bridge and fled into the recesses of the park.
Kitty would have paid the man no especial attention—workmen were continually employed in and about the tower—if his conduct had not seemed strange to her. The councillor was very fond of these roes; he was provoked when they strayed into the park, and here this stranger was intentionally chasing them across the ditch! Was he one of the discontented crowd of factory-hands who envied the rich man and wrought mischief to his possessions whenever they could? He turned into a path leading through the park-gates out upon the high-road; she followed him with her eyes until he was lost in the thicket. The resemblance was wonderful! In his carriage and height, in his whole make, indeed, the man in the blouse might have been the councillor’s twin brother.