the Count were only
a younger son, the law would do nothing for him and that he must continue
to earn his livelihood as he could. In the course of a long time Vjera had
come to the conclusion, by comparing this remark with the Count's
statement when in his abnormal condition, that he was indeed the son of a
great noble who had turned him out of doors for some fancied misdeed, and
from whom he had in reality nothing to expect. Such was the girl's present
belief.

Now, however, he had suddenly declared that his father and his brother
were dead. With a woman's keenness she took alarm at this new development.
She really loved the poor man with all her heart. If this new addition to
his story were a mere invention, it was a sign that his madness was
growing upon him, and she had heard her companions discuss their comrade
often enough to know that, in their opinion, if he began to grow worse, he
would very soon be in the madhouse. It was bad enough to go through what
she suffered so often, to see the inward struggle expressed on his face,
whenever he chanced to be alone with her on a Tuesday afternoon, to hear
from his lips the same assurance of love, the same offer of marriage, and
to know that all would be forgotten and that his manner to her would
change again, by Thursday, to that of a uniform, considerate kindness. It
was bad enough, for the girl loved him and was sensitive. But it would be
worse--how much worse, she dared not think--to see him go mad before her
very eyes, to see him taken away at last from the midst of them all to the
huge brick house in the outskirts of the city beyond the Isar.

One more hypothesis remained. This time the story might turn out true. She
believed in his birth and in his misfortunes, and in the existence of his
father and his brother. They might indeed be dead, as he had told her, and
he would then, perhaps, be sole master in their stead--she did not know
how that would be, in Russia. But then, if it were all true, he must go
away--and her life would be over, with its loving hope and its hopeless
love.

It is small wonder that Vjera did not sleep that night.

CHAPTER VIII.

Once or twice in the course of the night, the Count changed his position,
got up, stretched himself and paced the length of the room. Dumnoff lay
like a log upon his pallet, his head thrown back, his mouth open, snoring
with the strong bass vibration of a thirty-two-foot organ pipe. The Count
looked at hi