e been able to discover. I have not told
her mother yet. God help me--I dare not! I dare not even show my face at
home without her--my wife will never forgive me----"; and so great was
his emotion that he buried his face in his hands, and his great body
heaved and shook. Then he started to his feet, his eyes bulging and
lurid. "Curse you!" he shrieked; "curse you, Count! it's all your fault!
Day after day you've sat here, when you ought to have been hunting up
these rascally police of yours. You've no right to rest one second--not
one second, do you hear?--till the mystery surrounding these poor lost
children has been cleared up, and, living or dead--God forbid it should
prove to be the latter!--they are restored to their parents. Now, mark
my words, Count, unless my child Elizabeth is found, I'll make your name
a byword throughout the length and breadth of the country--I'll----";
but words failed him, and, shaking his fist, he staggered out of the
room.

The Count was much perturbed. The General was one of the few people in
the town who really had it in their power to do him harm--the one man
above all others with whom he had hitherto made it his business to keep
in. He had not the least doubt but that the General meant all he said,
and he recognized only too well that his one and only hope of salvation
lay in the recovery of Elizabeth. But, God in heaven, where could he
look for her? Sick at heart, he marshalled every policeman in the force,
and within an hour every street in Magdeburg was being subjected to a
most rigorous search. The Count was just quitting his office, resolved
to join in the hunt himself, when a shabbily dressed woman brushed past
the custodian at the door, and racing up to him, flung herself at his
feet.

"What the devil does she want?" the Count demanded savagely. "Who is
she?"

"Martha Brochel, your honour, a poor half-witted creature, who was one
of the first in the town to lose a child," the door-porter replied; "and
the shock of it has driven her mad!"

"Mad! mad! Yes! that is just what I am--mad!" the woman broke out.
"Everything is in darkness. It is always night! There are no houses, no
chimneys, no lanterns, only trees--big, black trees that rustle in the
wind, and shake their heads mockingly. And then something hideous comes!
What is it? Take it away! Take it away! Give her back to me!" And as
Martha's voice rose to a shriek, she threw her hands over her head, and,
clenching them, g