sly into the wood. She listened; she peered between the trees; all
was solitude. The tree-tops, softly murmuring, rocked gently to and fro,
and through the branches she saw the sunset glow. For the first time, the
young girl entered the wood alone. It was quite dark, in there. She passed
along with rapid step, among the solemn pines, hastening faster and
faster, as the trees seemed to draw together about her. When she came out
upon the open pathway, she saw Dietrich coming across the field in hot
haste. He was breathless when he reached her.

"I don't like to have you come alone through the wood, Veronica," he said,
"I thought I should be in time, but I could not get rid of those two
fellows. I tried to get away two or three times, but they always had
something more to say, and kept me."

"Where were you, Dietrich?"

"They had some business with me; that is, Jost had something to tell me,
and Blasi was there too. Jost did not care to speak of it on the open
street, and so we went into the Rehbock; and that is what made me so late.
Why, what's the matter, Veronica? Are you ill?"

She was as pale as a ghost.

"What! You've been to the Rehbock, Dietrich!" she exclaimed in evident
distress. "Oh, don't go there! Please don't go to that place again!"

"Oh, now we are to have the old story over again, are we?" said the young
man, laughing, "you have taken some foolish whim into your head; you
really don't know why yourself. What's your prejudice against that house
in particular?"

"I do know why; and it is no whim," said Veronica, earnestly. "I will tell
you all about it. That house has been a terror to me ever since I can
remember anything. We were both so young that you probably do not
recollect it at all. We both went with mother to the doctor's, but you
didn't go into the house, I remember now. Mother told the doctor that my
father was killed at the Rehbock. I have never forgotten it since. I am
constantly seeing him lying dead before my eyes; lying there struck down
dead. I often dream about it, and in my dreams I am there--and--and
sometimes when I look at his dead form in my dreams, it is not my father
any more, but it is you--you, Dietrich, whom they have struck down dead at
the Rehbock."

Dietrich was going to laugh at these words, but he glanced into Veronica's
face and was silent. She was more in earnest than he had thought. He tried
to quiet and reassure her, by saying that it was only a dream, and nothing