The lake, which was only a short distance away, had a border of tall trees and a hem of rushes, while on its quiet black surface there swam hundreds of water lilies.

“It really looks like something of the sort,” said Effi, “like Hertha worship.”

“Yes, your Ladyship, and the stones are further evidences of it.”

“What stones?”

“The sacrificial stones.”

While the conversation continued in this way they stepped from the lake to a perpendicular wall of gravel and clay, against which leaned a few smooth polished stones, with a shallow hollow in each drained by a few grooves.

“What is the purpose of these?”

“To make it drain better, your Ladyship.”

“Let us go,” said Effi, and, taking her husband’s arm, she walked back with him to the hotel, where the breakfast already ordered was served at a table with a view far out upon the sea.  Before them lay the bay in the sunshine, with sail boats here and there gliding across its surface and sea gulls pursuing each other about the neighboring cliffs.  It was very beautiful and Effi said so; but, when she looked across the glittering surface, she saw again, toward the south, the brightly shining roofs of the long-stretched-out village, whose name had given her such a start earlier in the morning.

Even without any knowledge or suspicion of what was occupying her, Innstetten saw clearly that she was having no joy or satisfaction.  “I am sorry, Effi, that you derive no real pleasure from these things here.  You cannot forget the Hertha Lake, and still less the stones.”

[Illustration:  Permission F Bruckmann A.-G.  Munich BATHING BOYS Adolph von Menzel]

She nodded.  “It is as you say, and I must confess that I have seen nothing in my life that made me feel so sad.  Let us give up entirely our search for rooms.  I can’t stay here.”

“And yesterday it seemed to you a Gulf of Naples and everything beautiful you could think of.”

“Yes, yesterday.”

“And today?  No longer a trace of Sorrento?”

“Still one trace, but only one.  It is Sorrento on the point of dying.”

“Very well, then, Effi,” said Innstetten, reaching her his hand.  “I do not want to worry you with Ruegen and so let us give it up.  Settled.  It is not necessary for us to tie ourselves up to Stubbenkammer or Sassnitz or farther down that way.  But whither?”

“I suggest that we stay a day longer and wait for the steamer that comes from Stettin tomorrow on its way to Copenhagen.  It is said to be so pleasurable there and I can’t tell you how I long for something pleasurable.  Here I feel as though I could never laugh again in all my life and had never laughed at all, and you know how I like to laugh.”

Innstetten showed himself full of sympathy with her state, the more readily, as he considered her right in many regards.  Really everything, though beautiful, was melancholy.