mentioned, and gazed on them
for hours long, yet I made no effort to speak, nor ask where I was, nor
to whom I was indebted for shelter and succor. This apathy--for it was,
indeed, such--held me entranced, even when the old man would approach
the bed to feel my pulse, to bathe my temples with water, or wet my
lips with a drink. After these visits he would take his staff from the
corner, and leave the room, to which he frequently did not return for
many hours. Thus went day after day, monotony over everything, till my
head ached with very weariness, as the lazy hours went by. Where was I?
Was this a state of suffering malady? Or was it imprisonment? Why was
I thus? How long should I still continue so? Such were the puzzling
questions which would present themselves before me,--never to be
solved--never replied to.

In my dreamy debility, when my faculties tottered like wearied limbs,
I often wondered if I might not have entered upon some new kind of
existence, in which long years of such wakeful sorrow should be gone
through; and in a mood like this was it that I lay one day all alone,
when from the open window there came the thrilling notes of a
blackbird which sat ou a tree close by. Not even the kindest words of a
fellow-creature could have filled my heart with more ecstasy than those
sounds reminding me of my once happy life, my home, the little garden of
the chateau, and its tangled alleys of fruit-trees and flowering shrubs.
I struggled to arise from my bed, and after some efforts I succeeded,
and with weak step and trembling limbs I reached the window and looked
out.

Sudden as the change from blackest night to the light of breaking
day was the effect that came over me as I gazed down the valley, and
recognized each well-known crag, and cliff, and mountain peak of the
Verlohrnes Loch. At once now came back all memory of my adventure and
the night of the storm; and at once I saw that I was standing at the
window of that old ruin which had been the goal of my wandering.

How I longed to learn what interval of time had gone over! I tried to
calculate it by remembering that it was early summer when I came, but
still the trees wore no tokens of coming autumn. They were bright in
foliage, and leafy, and the streams that traversed the valley were small
and tiny rills that showed no touch of the season of rains. From these
observations I now addressed myself to an inspection of the interior.
Well used as I had been to