cence was proof against all her wiles. He would shake his head with respectful obstinacy; he regretted his inability to fulfil her wishes; he would do anything else to please the Fräulein, but the mere mention of Gaura Dracului was enough to throw a spell of silence over him. Even the slightest reference to his vow he shunned with nervous dread, and all Gretchen's entreaties had not yet succeeded in eliciting the history of that mysterious oath.
"I am sure it is something interesting," she said once, with a sigh of baffled curiosity.
"It is something terrible," answered the Bohemian, shuddering.
It was in the old street of the place, and beside the old stone fountain, that Gretchen had on this occasion accosted the Bohemian. She was on her way home with Kurt, and her hands were full of autumn crocuses which she had gathered in her walk. Mr Howard with his fishing-rod, and Baron Tolnay with his dog, had joined the group; for the Hercules fountain was a convenient spot of meeting: every one had to pass that way, and no one could pass unobserved.
Through the first shade of dusk the stone Hercules loomed black and gigantic above them; the waters splashed softly at his feet.
"Really," said Mr Howard, "this will never do; this fellow's superstition will be infecting us presently. We are all, as it is, mentally deranged on the subject of this preposterous place. I, for one, am anticipating my dotage. What do you think I caught myself humming this morning in my bath? Why, the air of that ridiculous song about the Roman fellow who shoved a lady down the hole in the dark – a very ungentlemanlike thing to do, by the way."
"They certainly all behaved very foolishly," said Gretchen, leaning over the edge of the fountain, and looking at her reflection in the water: "everybody was always so illogical in those times. What a comfort it is that people have become more sensible and quiet now!"
"Sensible and quiet!" said Baron Tolnay, with a peculiar laugh. "Do you think so? Why, men are just the same in this age of reason as they were in the age of romance."
"The age of folly, you should call it. I am so glad it is past; that age would never have suited me."
"And I am sorry, for it would have suited me exactly."
"What part of it?" she said, laughing; "the costumes and the feastings, perhaps, – but surely not the murder and the bloodshed?"
"Yes, even the murder and the bloodshed. I could do what they did, if I had motive enough."
"And what do you call motive enough?" she asked, absently.
Tolnay was leaning beside her now: she saw the reflection of his face alongside of her own in the water, and even in this imperfect mirror she could not fail to note the eagerness with which his eyes were seeking hers. The look on his face answered her: "Love would be my motive – love for you!"
Tolnay was not accustomed to set a guard upon his eyes, nor were his glances generally barred by timidity ; but even he had never before dared to show his admiration so absolutely unveiled. Now, under cover of the presiding deity, he let fall for a moment the transparent mask of conventional restraint. Whose business, after all, was it to note the expression which he wore at the foot of the
