ttered about his
desk. As he stared at them they seemed somehow to come together, and the
lines and curves arranged themselves in symmetrical shapes, until they
developed from diagrams into pictures; and as they did so he found
himself forgetting all about the problems, and thinking only of the
strange vision which seemed to be unfolding itself among the scattered
papers before him. The straight lines became the walls and turrets of
one of those two-or three-hundred-year-old German country houses, half
castle, half mansion, which every explorer of the bye-paths of the
Fatherland has seen and admired so often. The curves became long,
sweeping stretches of sandy bays, fringed with other curves of breaking
rollers; and as the picture grew more distinct, one great circle
embraced a whole perfect picture of land and seascape--land dusky and
forest-covered in the southward half; and the misty sea, island-dotted,
wind-whipped, and foam-flecked, to the northward.

The castle stood on the top of a somewhat steeply sloping hill about
five hundred feet above the sandy shore, on which the breakers were
curling a couple of miles away. The hill was covered with thick-growing
firs from the plain to the castle wall, but two broad avenues ran in
straight lines, one to seaward, and the other down into the depths of
the vast forest, until it opened on to the post road, which afforded the
only practicable carriage route to the station of Trelitz on the main
Berlin-Koenigsberg Railway.

The longer he looked, the more surprisingly distinct the picture became,
and, curiously enough, the less his wonder grew. He saw three men on
horseback riding at a canter up the avenue from the forest. Their
costumes showed plainly enough that they had just come back from the
chase. As they rode on they seemed to come quite close to him, until he
could see their features with perfect distinctness. By the changing
expression of their faces he could tell they were laughing and chatting;
but, singularly enough, he could not hear a word that they were saying,
which, considering the minuteness with which he saw everything, struck
him as being distinctly curious.

He watched them ride up to the old Gothic gateway in the wall which ran
round the castle, suiting itself to the irregularities of the hill. They
crossed the courtyard and dismounted. The grooms led their horses away,
and, as the big double doors opened, they went in, one of them, standing
aside for th