He forbore to ask her his question again--she might tell him at her convenience.

But the days passed by, and she never told him--she had her own reasons.

Bernard talked with her very often; conversation formed indeed the chief entertainment of the quiet little circle of which he was a member.

They sat on the terrace and talked in the mingled starlight and lamplight, and they strolled in the deep green forests and wound along the side of the gentle Baden hills, under the influence of colloquial tendencies.

The Black Forest is a country of almost unbroken shade, and in the still days of midsummer the whole place was covered with a motionless canopy of verdure.