It was indeed true, as she had said to her brother, that there was
"nothing between" her and Wilhelm. Never a word had passed; never a look
or tone to betray that he knew whether she were fair or not,--whether
she lived or not. She came and went in his presence, as did all others,
with no more apparent relation to the currents of his strange veiled
existence than if they or he belonged to a phantom world. But it was
also true that never since the first day of his mysterious coming had
Wilhelm been long absent from Carlen's thoughts; and she did indeed find
him--as her father's keen eyes, sharpened by greed, had observed--good
to look upon. That most insidious of love's allies, pity, had stormed
the fortress of Carlen's heart, and carried it by a single charge. What
could a girl give, do, or be, that would be too much for one so
stricken, so lonely as was Wilhelm! The melancholy beauty of his face,
his lithe figure, his great strength, all combined to heighten this
impression, and to fan the flames of the passion in Carlen's virgin
soul. It was indeed, as John had sorrowfully said to himself, "too late"
to speak to Carlen.

As John stood now at the pasture bars, waiting for the herd of cows,
slow winding up the slope from the brook, he saw Wilhelm on the rocks
below. He had thrown himself down on his back, and lay there with his
arms crossed on his breast. Presently he clasped both hands over his
eyes as if to shut out a sight that he could no longer bear. Something
akin to pity stirred even in John's angry heart as he watched him.

"What can it be," he said, "that makes him hate even the sky? It may be
it is a sweetheart he has lost, and he is one of that strange kind of
men who can love but once; and it is loving the dead that makes him so
like one dead himself. Poor Carlen! I think myself he never so much as
sees her."