owers bloom again, and in autumn when
the dead leaves cover the soil. But the count would not marry again; all
his love is given to his daughter."

"So the marriage was a happy one throughout?"

"Happy! why it was a blessing for everybody."

I said no more. It was plain that the count had not committed, and could
not have committed, a crime. I was obliged to yield to evidence. But,
then, what was the meaning of that scene at night, that strange
connection with the Black Pest, that fearful acting, that remorse in
a dream, which impelled the guilty to betray their past atrocities?

I lost myself in vain conjectures.

Knapwurst relighted his pipe, and handed me one, which I accepted.

By that time the icy numbness which had laid hold of me had nearly passed
away, and I was enjoying that pleasant sense of relief which follows
great fatigue when by the chimney-corner in a comfortable easy-chair,
veiled in wreaths of tobacco-smoke, you yield to the luxury of repose,
and listen idly to the duet between the chirping of a cricket on the
hearth and the hissing of the burning log.

So we sat for a quarter of an hour.

At last I ventured to remark--

"But sometimes the count gets angry with his daughter?"

Knapwurst started, and fixing a sinister, almost a fierce and hostile eye
upon me, answered--

"I know, I know!"

I watched him narrowly, thinking I might learn something now in support
of my theory, but he simply added ironically--

"The towers of Nideck are high, and slander flies too low to reach their
elevation!"

"No doubt; but still it is a fact, is it not?"

"Oh yes, so it is; but after all it is only a craze, an effect of his
complaint. As soon as the crisis is past all his love for mademoiselle
comes back. I assure you, sir, that a lover of twenty could not be more
devoted, more affectionate, than he is. That young girl is his pride and
his joy. A dozen times have I seen him riding away to get a dress, or
flowers, or what not, for her. He went off alone, and brought back the
articles in triumph, blowing his horn. He would have entrusted so
delicate a commission to no one, not even to Sperver, whom he is so fond
of. Mademoiselle never dares express a wish in his hearing lest he should
start off and fulfil it at once. The lord of Nideck is the worthiest
master, the tenderest father, and the kindest and most upright of men.
Those poachers who are for ever infesting our woods, the old Count Ludwig
would ha