word about that brook to the
Countess, or to her servants--mark that--I will have the breath flogged
out of your body and your tongue snipped. Do you hear?"

"Y--yes, your honour," the innkeeper cried. "I ful--fully
un--understand, and if her ladyship asks me any--anything abou--out the
br--br--brook, I will lie."

"Which won't trouble you much, eh?"

"N--n--o, your honour! I mean y--yes, your honour! It will be a burden
on my con--conscience, but I will do anything to pl--please your
honour."

The interview then terminated, and the innkeeper, bathed in perspiration
and wishing his lot in life anything but what it was, hastened to
prepare dinner.

"I hope nothing dreadful will happen to me; I feel that something will,"
the Countess said, as she let down her long beautiful hair that night.
"Carl, why did you let me drink the water?"

"The water be ----!" the Count growled. "Didn't you hear what the
innkeeper said?--that the story was mere invention! If you believe all
the idle tales you hear, you will soon be in an asylum. Hilda, I'm
ashamed of you!"

"And I'm ashamed of myself," the Countess cried, "so there!" and she
flung her arms round his neck and kissed him.

The following morning they left the inn, and, retracing their steps,
journeyed homewards. The Count looked at his wife somewhat critically;
she was very pale, and there were dark rims under her eyes.

"I do believe, Hilda," he observed with an assumed gaiety, "you are
still worrying about that water!"

"I am," she replied; "I had such queer dreams."

He asked her to narrate them, but she refused; and as her sleep now
became constantly disturbed, and she was getting thin and worried, the
Count determined that as soon as he reached home he would call in a
doctor. The latter, examining the Countess, attributed the cause of her
indisposition to dyspepsia, and ordered her a diet of milk food. But she
did not get better, and now insisted upon sleeping alone, choosing a
bedroom situated in a secluded part of the house, where there was
absolute silence.

The Count remonstrated. "You might at least let me occupy the room next
to you!" he said.

"No," she replied; "I should hear you if you did. I am sensible now of
the very slightest sounds, and besides disturbing me, they are a source
of the greatest annoyance. I feel I shall never get well again unless I
can have complete rest and quiet. Do let me!" and she fixed her big blue
eyes on him so earnestl