We, however, almost at the same moment reached a summer-house on the borders of the garden, whence through the open window there was a view of the wide, deep valley.  The sun had long since set behind the mountains, a rosy haze glimmered in the warm fading twilight, through which the murmur of the Danube ascended clearer and clearer the stiller grew the air.  I looked long at the lovely Countess, who stood before me heated with her flight and so close that I could almost hear her heart beat.  Now that I was alone with her I could find no words to speak, so great was my awe of her.  At last I took heart of grace, and clasped in mine one of her little white hands—­and in one moment her head lay on my breast and my arms were around her.

In an instant she extricated herself and turned to the window to cool her glowing cheeks in the evening air.  “Ah,” I cried, “my heart is full to bursting, but it all seems like a dream to me!” “And to me too,” said the lovely Lady fair.  “When, last summer,” she went on after a while, “I came back with the Countess from Rome where we fortunately found Fraeulein Flora, and had brought her back with us but could hear nothing of you either there or here, I never thought all this would come to pass.  It was only at noon today that Jocky, the good, brisk fellow, came breathless into the court-yard and brought the news that you had come by the mail-boat.”  Then she laughed quietly to herself.  “Do you remember,” she said, “that time when I came out on the balcony?  It was just such an evening as this, and there was music in the garden.”  “And he is really dead?” I asked hastily.  “Whom do you mean?” replied the Lady fair, looking at me in surprise.  “Your ladyship’s husband,” said I, “who was with you on the balcony.”  She flushed crimson.  “What strange fancies you have in your head!” she exclaimed.  “That was the Countess’s son, who had just returned from his travels, and, since it happened to be my birthday, he led me out on the balcony with him that I might have a share of the cheers.  Was that why you ran away?” “Good heavens, yes!” I cried, striking my forehead with my hand.  She shook her head and laughed merrily.

I was so happy there beside her while she went on chatting so confidingly, that I could have sat listening until morning.  I found in my pocket a handful of almonds which I had brought with me from Italy.  She took some, and we sat and cracked them and gazed abroad over the quiet country.  “Do you see that little white villa,” she said after a while, “gleaming over there in the moonlight?  The Count has given us that, with its garden and vineyard; there is where we are to live.  He found out long ago that we cared for each other, and he is very fond of you, for if he had not had you with them when he was running off with Fraeulein Flora they would both have been caught before the Countess had become reconciled to him, and everything would have been spoiled.”  “Good heavens! fairest, sweetest Countess,”