ttmar. No male scion
was suffered to perpetuate the race. The bride of his selection died
on her wedding-day, and he himself was doomed to follow quickly after.
The rich possessions passed to the nearest relative, who, by virtue of
an ancient law, assumed the name of Gottmar. The family was very
ancient. It traced its origin back to the Sclavonian priests, the
sacrificers to the God Mahr, and bore in its armorial ensigns a
sacrificial axe and a blood channel, in shape like that which at this
day is found cut into the granite-blocks of the high mountain that
bears the name of Gottmar. The later descendants of this powerful and
widely-ramified house could no longer explain the cause of their cruel
condition. It had been deemed advisable by their ancestors to
exterminate every record of it, hoping thereby perhaps to weaken, in
the course of time, the curse itself. The precaution was fruitless. No
alteration whatever took place in the fate of the doomed family, which
at length was regarded, no less by itself than by the world, as the
outlawed of heaven.

"The last living representative of the house of Gottmar entered upon
the family inheritance upon the death of his cousin. Bolko was a mild
yet enthusiastic youth, glowing with deep, ripe feeling, and needy of
human love. He had little joy in the acquisition of what, in other
circumstances, might have been considered his enviable fortune. He
thought only of the miserable destiny that sentenced him to celibacy
or death. His immediate predecessor, riding across a heath to take a
last farewell of his bride, had been struck dead by lightning, and the
maiden herself had been hurled from life at the edge of a precipice.
Bolko, attired in mourning, sat at the window of his lofty castle, and
surveyed the lovely prospect before him, bathed as it was in the
golden light of evening. Here were rich forests, there teeming fields;
in the depths of the valleys prosperous labouring villages; and in the
far distance, towering above all, the blue crests and jagged peaks of
a mountain region.

"'And all has become mine!' he exclaimed, resting his forehead
dejectedly upon his hand; 'to pass quickly away again, and unenjoyed!
And I, in ignorance, why! To be a sinner, a criminal, and not
conscious of one criminal aspiration. Yet, to be punished for
crime--to be killed for crime. Oh, it is hard! And heaven, sweet and
fair as she appears, is crueler than I could have believed.'

"His preceptor,