be here? Was it possible that he might arrive this night?
I obtained the German equivalent for Bradshaw, and studied it till I
thought I had made out that, supposing Eugen to receive the telegram in
the shortest possible time, he might be here by half past eleven that
night. It was now five in the afternoon. Six hours and a half--and at
the end of that time his non-arrival might tell me he could not be here
before the morrow.

I sat still, and now that the deed was done, gave myself up, with my
usual enlightenment and discretion, to fears and apprehensions. The
terrible look and tone of Graf von Rothenfels returned to my mind in
full force. Clearly it was just the most dangerous thing in the world
for Eugen to do--to put in an appearance at the present time. But
another glance at Sigmund somewhat reassured me. In wondering whether
girl had ever before been placed in such a bizarre situation as mine,
darkness overtook me.

Sigmund moved restlessly and moaned, stretching out little hot hands,
and saying "Father!" I caught those hands to my lips, and knew that I
had done right.

CHAPTER XL.

VINDICATED.

It was a wild night. Driving clouds kept hiding and revealing the
stormy-looking moon. I was out-of-doors. I could not remain in the
house; it had felt too small for me, but now nature felt too large. I
dimly saw the huge pile of the schloss defined against the gray light;
sometimes when the moon unveiled herself it started out clear, and
black, and grim. I saw a light in a corner window--that was Sigmund's
room; and another in a room below--that was the Graf's study, and there
the terrible man sat. I heard the wind moan among the trees, heard the
great dogs baying from the kennels; from an open window came rich, low,
mellow sounds. Old Brunken was in the music-room, playing to himself
upon the violoncello. That was a movement from the "Grand Septuor"--the
second movement, which is, if one may use such an expression, painfully
beautiful. I bethought myself of the woods which lay hidden from me, the
vast avenues, the lonely tanks, the grotesques statues, and that
terrible figure with its arms cast upward, at the end of the long walk,
and I shivered faintly.

I was some short distance down the principal avenue, and dared not go
any further. A sudden dread of the loneliness and the night-voices came
upon me; my heart beating thickly, I turned to go back to the house. I
would try to comfort poor Countess Hilde