Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Prince Otto

A ROMANCE 293
not pin my faith to him. To follow down this
stream will bring us, but after innumerable
windings, to my house. Here, up this glade,
there lies a cross-cut — the world's end for soli-
tude — the very deer scarce visit it. Are you
too tired, or could you pass that way ?
' Choose the path, Otto. I will follow you,'
she said.
4 No,' he replied, with a singular imbecility
of manner and appearance, ' but I meant the
path was rough. It lies, all the way, by glade
and dingle, and the dingles are both deep and
thorny.'
6 Lead on,' she said. c Are you not Otto the
Hunter ? '
They had now burst across a veil of under-
wood, and were come into a lawn among the
forest, very green and innocent, and solemnly
surrounded by trees. Otto paused on the margin,
looking about him with delight ; then his glance
returned to Seraphina, as she stood framed in
that sylvan pleasantness and looking at her
husband with undecipherable eyes. A weakness
both of the body and mind fell on him like the
beginnings of sleep ; the cords of his activity
were relaxed, his eyes clung to her. ' Let us
rest,' he said ; and he made her sit down, and
himself sat down beside her on the slope of an
inconsiderable mound.