Schwartz had borne himself with extraordinary discretion by forbearing
to spread alarm at the palace. He saluted his young mistress in the
regulation manner while receiving her beneath a vast umbrella, the
holiday peasant's invariable companion in these parts. A forester was
in attendance carrying shawls, clogs, and matting. The boat was turned
and launched.

'Adieu, Harry Richmond. Will you be quite patient till you hear from
me?' said Ottilia, and added, 'It is my question!' delightfully recalling
old times.

I was soon gazing at the track of the boat in rough water.

Shouts were being raised somewhere about the forest, and were replied to
by hearty bellow of the rower's lungs. She was now at liberty to join my
name to her own or not, as she willed. I had to wait. But how much
richer was I than all the world! The future owed me nothing. I would
have registered a vow to ask nothing of it. Among the many determined
purposes framing which I walked home, was one to obtain a grant of that
bit of land where we had sat together, and build a temple on it. The
fear that it might be trodden by feet of men before I had enclosed it
beset me with anguish. The most absolute pain I suffered sprang from a
bewildering incapacity to conjure up a vision of Ottilia free of the
glittering accessories of her high birth; and that was the pain of shame;
but it came only at intervals, when pride stood too loftily and the
shadow of possible mischance threatened it with the axe.

She did not condemn me to long waiting. Her favourite Aennchen brought
me her first letter. The girl's face beamed, and had a look as if she