And lying among the ruins he called up the scene again and again, and the strange woman gradually got possession of his mind, as a cunning enchantress might, and she moulded his thoughts about her till they clung to her and burned.

He did not seriously think to meet her again in the Schloss, if he thought of it at all, for he knew of course that she must have been a bird of passage, only pausing an instant on that hot day to visit some scene long familiar to her memory.
And of course, like a true philosophical student, he did not attempt to explain to himself his own conduct, nor to catalogue the reasons for and against a daily visit to the old castle.
So the week passed, and another after it, and one day, late in the afternoon, Claudius descended the hill and went up as usual to his chamber above the river, to spend an hour indoors before going to supper.

It was a beautiful evening, and he left his door partly open on to the landing that the breeze might blow through the room as he sat by the window.

A book was in his hand before he had sat many moments, from sheer force of habit; but he did not read.

The sounds of the street rose pleasantly to his ear as the little boys and girls played together across each other's doorsteps.