indeed, had a marvellous effect upon him. He sat up instantly, his eyes
flashing the old light, and began to speak rapidly and to clear purport,
even as he used to do in the old days when Duke Casimir would come
striding across the yard at all hours of the night and day to consult
his Justicer.

"What was I telling?" he went on. "Yes, I remember, of the home-coming
of Helene under honorable escort. And she was beautiful--but all her
race were beautiful, all the women of them, at any rate. But that is
another matter.

"So things went well enough with us till, as she went across the yard one
day to meet me at the door of the hall as I came out, who should see her
but the Count Otho von Reuss. And she turned from him like a queen and
took hold of my arm, clasping it strongly. Then he gazed fixedly at us
both, and his look was the evil-doer's look. Oh, I know it. Who knows
that look, if not I? And so we passed within. But my Helene was quivering
and much afraid, nestling to me--aye, to me, old Gottfried Gottfried,
like a frightened dove.

"After this she went not out into the court-yard or city any more, save
with me by her side, and Otho von Reuss lingered about, watching like a
wolf about the sheepfold. For, as I say, he was in high favor with Duke
Casimir, and had already equal place with him on the bed of justice.

"Then there came a night, lightning peeping and blazing, alternate blue
and ghastly white--God's face and the devil's time about staring in at
the lattice. I lay alone in my chamber. But I was not asleep. As you
know, I do not often sleep. But I lay awake and thought and thought. The
lightning showed me faces I had not seen for thirty years, and forms I
remembered, black against eternity. But all at once, in a certain
after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice
call to me.

"'My father--my father" it cried.

"It was like a soul in danger calling on God.

"I rose and went, clad as I was in the red of mine office (for that day I
had done the final grace more than once); even so, I ran down the stairs
to the room of my little Helene.

"The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open,
white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some
monstrous thing away. A black shape, whose, I could not tell, I saw
bending over her. Then came blackness of darkness again. And again my
Helene's voice. Ah, God, I can hear it now, calling pitifully, li