delay. I shall set out for home
to-night, but the count will return to the castle in time for supper;
he has guests, some cousins and neighbors, with whom he's going to hunt
to-morrow. If you decide to go, I'll tell him I've accidentally met a
colleague here, who has fortunately appeared in the very nick of time,
and who is an authority in psychiatry, and that he can't do better than
to place the case in his hands. I know you've never seen each other,
and little Jean respects you too much not to keep his mouth shut if I
whisper a word in his ear, I hear the count's voice below. Shall I call
him or not?"

Edwin rose. "I know it will be useless, perhaps even harmful," he said
in a hollow tone. "_I_ have power over her? She must then have changed
very much. But no matter. As the case now stands, you're right; I
should reproach myself bitterly if I should keep on my way and
afterwards hear that some misfortune had happened. I'll only make one
request, that you'll tell the count who I am, the same man who once
loved his wife and whose brother--oh! Marquard, that's hardest of all!
To be under the same roof with the man who was the cause of Balder's
death!"

"For all that he's done to you or anybody else, he's now atoning in a
purgatory as terrible as one could wish for his worst enemy," replied
the physician. "I'm no hero of virtue, my lad, but I should like to
singe the thin locks on the count's brow with my coals of fire. But
you're right, we needn't be afraid to play with our cards on the table.
If he refuses, we must try some other way. But from what I know of him,
he's above the common fear of ghosts and will welcome with open arms
any spectre that will aid him in regaining his wife."

He rushed out of the room, and Edwin remained alone, a prey to the most
contradictory emotions.

CHAPTER III.

He hastily lighted a candle, took a small portfolio out of his
traveling satchel and wrote a few lines to inform Mohr where he was to
be found, in case his friend did not prefer to await his return, which
he hoped would be speedy, at the hotel. "It would be best," he
concluded, "for you to follow me at once, and take me away from the
castle, where the duties of friendship and a vain hope of being useful,
may perhaps detain me longer than I desire." He had just folded this
note, to leave it in the hotel, and was looking at his letter to Leah,
irresolute whether or not to open it and add