"Where are you going?" asked the hostess.

"To the capital," said he, although I had not said a word to him about
it. Then he said to me in a whisper:--

"If you intend to go elsewhere, the people needn't know everything."

I let him have his own way.

I looked for the place where I had wandered at that time. There--there
was the rock--and on it a cross, bearing in golden characters the
inscription:--

HERE PERISHED

IRMA, COUNTESS VON WILDENORT,

IN THE TWENTY-FIRST YEAR
OF HER LIFE.

_Traveler, pray for her and honor her memory_.

I never rightly knew why I was always dissatisfied, and yearning for
the next hour, the next day, the next year, hoping that it would bring
me that which I could not find in the present. It was not love, for love
does not satisfy. I desired to live in the passing moment, but could
not. It always seemed as if something were waiting for me without the
door, and calling me. What could it have been?