Besides this grave, which he could not keep himself from haunting, Engelberg attracted him by its double association with Felicita.

Here he had seen her for the first and for the last time.

There was no other spot in the world, except the home he had lost forever, so full of memories of her.
He could live over again every instant of each interview with her, with all the happy interval that lay between them.

The rest of his life was steeped in shadow; the earlier years before he knew Felicita were pale and dim; the time since he lost her was unreal and empty, like a confused dream.
After a while a dull despondency succeeded to the acute misery of his first winter and summer.

His second fraud had been terribly successful; in a certain measure he was duped by it himself.