Beneath the tall trees lay long nocturnal shadows; over the pond where
there was more light, being free from shade, hung a faint vapory cloud,
and over yonder in the meadows, where a pool of water, concealed by the
mossy moorland, had formed, the mists had gathered still more thickly
and hung like a gray-white veil over all the heath. The air from the
meadows was blowing damp and chill.

At last there was a light step, faint and uncertain--then, as it came on
quickly in the direction of the pond, firmer and more resolute. Now a
slender figure came in view, scarcely recognizable in the gathering
darkness, and Zalika flew to meet her son, who, in the next minute lay
in her arms.

"What has happened?" she asked amidst the wonted stormy caresses. "Why
are you so late? I had begun to despair of seeing you to-day. What
detained you?"

"I could not come sooner," Hartmut explained, still breathless, after
his long run. "I come from my father."

Zalika drew back.

"From your father? And he knows--?"

"All!"

"So he is at Burgsdorf? Since when? who told him?"

The young man related in a few words all that had happened, but he had
not finished when a bitter laugh from his mother interrupted him.