The endless stretch of forest which lay before them was in its gayest
autumn dress, but in the sombre light of the approaching storm, its
brilliant leaves looked faded and faint. The deep reds and many tinted
yellows of the foliage formed a beautiful picture, but these were the
colors of decay and death, and told that the end of their life and bloom
was not far distant.
Beneath them lay the little lake, dark and motionless, surrounded by
high grasses and swamp reeds. It looked like another lonely sheet of
water in the far northland--the Burgsdorf fish pond, and back from this
little lake stretched a meadow green and marshy, from which, even now, a
faint mist was rising, a mist, which as night came down, would change
into a rain, while the will-o'-the-wisp in its endless sport and motion,
would play in and out among the long green rushes, now gleaming, now
disappearing--thus perfecting that far off picture of long ago.
The air was oppressive and sultry, and the distant clouds were forming
deeper and darker heights against the horizon.
Adelheid had not answered Hartmut's question; she stood looking into the
distance with face turned away from the man who was watching her, and
yet she felt the dark consuming glance resting on her, as she had felt
it so many times during the past few weeks.
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