ed by some person rushing and
scrambling vehemently against it. A domestic had run without
delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they
heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for
admission, but without eliciting any other answer but a
sustained reiteration of the sounds. They heard him then
open the hall-door, and immediately there followed a light
and rapid tread upon the staircase. Schalken advanced
towards the door. It opened before he reached it, and Rose
rushed into the room. She looked wild, fierce, and haggard
with terror and exhaustion; but her dress surprised them as
much even as her unexpected appearance. It consisted of a
kind of white woollen wrapper, made close about the neck,
and descending to the very ground. It was much deranged and
travel soiled. The poor creature had hardly entered the
chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. With some
difficulty they succeeded in reviving her; and on recovering
her senses she instantly exclaimed, in a tone of terror
rather than mere impatience, 'Wine! wine!--quickly, or I'm
lost!"

"Astonished, and almost scared, at the strange agitation in
which the call was made, they at once administered to her
wishes, and she drank some wine with a haste and eagerness
which surprised them. She had hardly swallowed it, when she
exclaimed, with the same urgency, 'Food, for God's sake;
food at once, or I perish!'

"A large fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and
Schalken immediately began to cut some; but he was
anticipated; for no sooner did she see it than she caught
it, a more than mortal image of famine, and with her hands,
and even with her teeth, she tore off the flesh, and
swallowed it. When the paroxysm of hunger had been a little
appeased, she was on a sudden overcome with shame; or it may
have been that other more agitating thoughts overpowered and
scared her, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her
hands.

"'Oh! send for a minister of God!' said she; 'I am not safe
till he comes; send for him speedily.'

"Gerard Douw dispatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed
on his niece to allow him to surrender his bedchamber to her
use. He also persuaded her to retire there at once to rest:
her consent was extorted upon th