At first I was very cautious, but when I perceived that the opinions of
the doubters and deniers merely inspired her with pity, I spoke more
freely.

Her soul was like a polished plate of metal on which a picture is etched.
This, her belief, remained uninjured. Whatever else might be reflected
from the mirror-like surface soon vanished, leaving no trace.

The young girl died shortly after our separation the following year. She
had grown very dear to my heart. Her beloved image appears to me most
frequently as she looked in the days when she was suffering, with thick,
fair hair falling in silken masses on her white dress, but amid keen
physical pain the love of pleasure natural to youth still lingered. She
went with me--both in wheel-chairs--to a ball at the Kursaal, and looked
so pretty in an airy, white dress which her mother and sister had
arranged for their darling, that I should have longed to dance with her
had not this pleasure been denied me.

Hirsau had first been suggested as a resting-place, but it was doubtful
whether we should find what we needed there. If not, the carriage was to
convey us to beautiful, quiet Herrenalb, between Wildbad and Baden-Baden.

But we found what we sought, the most suitable house possible, whose
landlady proved to have been trained as a cook in a Frankfort hotel.

The lodgings we engaged were among the most "romantic" I have ever
occupied, for our landlord's house was built in the ruins of the
monastery just beside the old refectory. The windows of one room looked
out upon the cloisters and the Virgin's chapel, the only part of the once
stately building spared by the French in 1692.