the justice-hall when I saw a figure with a light slip
in before me. On entering the hall I saw it was Lady Adelheid. "This is
the way we have to wander about like ghosts or night-walkers in order
to catch you, my brave slayer of wolves," she whispered, taking my arm.
The words "ghosts" and "sleep-walkers," pronounced in the place where
we were, fell like lead upon my heart; they immediately brought to my
recollection the ghostly apparitions of those two awful nights. As
then, so now, the wind came howling in from the sea in deep organ-like
cadences, rattling the oriel windows again and again and whistling
fearfully through them, whilst the moon cast her pale gleams exactly
upon the mysterious part of the wall where the scratching had been
heard. I fancied I discerned stains of blood upon it. Doubtless Lady
Adelheid, who still had hold of my hand, must have felt the cold icy
shiver which ran through me. "What's the matter with you?" she
whispered softly; "what's the matter with you? You are as cold as
marble. Come, I will call you back into life. Do you know how very
impatient the Baroness is to see you? And until she does see you she
will not believe that the ugly wolf has not really bitten you. She is
in a terrible state of anxiety about you. Why, my friend,--oh! how have
you awakened this interest in the little Seraphina? I have never seen
her like this. Ah!--so now the pulse is beginning to prickle; see how
quickly the dead man comes to life! Well, come along--but softly,
still! Come, we must go to the little Baroness." I suffered myself to
be led away in silence. The way in which Adelheid spoke of the Baroness
seemed to me undignified, and the innuendo of an understanding between
us positively shameful. When I entered the room along with Adelheid,
Seraphina, with a low-breathed "Oh!" advanced three or four paces
quickly to meet me; but then, as if recollecting herself, she stood
still in the middle of the room. I ventured to take her hand and press
it to my lips. Allowing it to rest in mine, she asked, "But, for
Heaven's sake! is it your business to meddle with wolves? Don't you
know that the fabulous days of Orpheus and Amphion are long past, and
that wild beasts have quite lost all respect for even the most
admirable of singers?" But this gleeful turn, by which the Baroness at
once effectually guarded against all misinterpretation of her warm
interest in me, I was put immediately into the proper key and the
prope