enter the room.

When the light of her little lamp streamed far before her into the dark
ante-chamber, the old woman remained standing on the threshold as if
petrified, unable to take a single step forward or backward. She saw
Fraeulein Christiane standing motionless with bare feet, beside the wall
at the head of the bed, the coverlid closely wrapped around her, her
unbound hair streaming over her shoulders, her right arm with the
fingers of the hand extended, stretched out before her, her eyes,
dilated so that the whites glittered in the light, fixed in a rigid
stare on the dark figure of a man, who also stood motionless in the
middle of the room. Not a syllable was uttered. A stifled cry, like a
rattling in the throat, came from Christiane, and from the spot where
the man stood a sound very like the grinding of teeth. The man then
turned, noiselessly and with apparent calmness, and seemed to be
looking for something on the floor; then waving one hand toward the
wall, and concealing his face with the other, he kept his back toward
the little lamp, and glided bare headed past the old woman out into the
dark entry.

At the same moment the white figure beside the bed sank down, and as
the old servant rushed forward, the light fell upon a face deadly pale
and distorted by the wildest convulsions of human agony.

CHAPTER VII.

Day had scarcely dawned, when the door of the tun was softly opened and
Heinrich Mohr's herculean figure appeared on the threshold; he took
leave of Edwin with a silent pressure of the hand. When, late in the
evening, he had come to the house to see whether Christiane had
returned in safety, he was soothed by the light in her window, and went
up stairs to pay Balder a visit and calm his excited nerves by a game
of chess. When he heard what had occurred and saw the poor young
fellow's condition, he could not be dissuaded from watching with him
through the night. Franzelius had rushed off for the doctor as soon as
Edwin returned. He found Marquard's doors locked, his master would
probably not come home that night, the servant said with a significant
smile. Another doctor, the best that could be procured, was then
summoned and prescribed the necessary remedies. After this the night
passed quietly without incident. The friends, both equally moved by
this vicissitude of fate, scarcely exchanged a word during the long
hours, but sat side by side on the bench by the