I hear. _I_ myself was not
at home when the event occurred. Your excellency's stewardess had invited
me to assist her in preparing yesterday's feast, and I only returned in
haste as soon as it was rumored that the White Lady was abroad in the
castle."

"But you have surely seen and questioned the Prince's valet?"

"He is the only man in the castle who can not be approached with good or
evil words, your excellency, and who brooks not being questioned. Of
course, I tried questioning him about the White Lady, but his only answer
was that he had seen nothing, and did not believe in ghost stories. He
only knew that his dear young Prince was sick, and he troubled himself
about nothing else."

"He is still sick then, the Electoral Prince?" asked Count Schwarzenberg
with indifference. "Has he not slept off his intoxication yet?"

"Most gracious sir, I do not believe that it was intoxication, else surely
the Prince would be well to-day! But he is not at all better, and the
Electress, who visited her son early this morning, broke forth into loud
weeping when she saw him, for he must look just like a corpse."

"Did he recognize the Electress? Did he speak to her?"

"He knows nobody, he does not open his eyes, but lies there stiff and
stark like a dead man, and if he did not sometimes fetch a breath, you
would believe that he were already dead. This the little Princess herself
told me, as I accidentally met her in the passage, when she returned from
visiting her brother. But the doctor says this sleep is the beneficial
result of his treatment, and that when the Electoral Prince awakes he will
be quite restored to health. He has ordered that no one else be admitted
to see the Prince, and Dietrich watches over him like a Cerberus."

"And he does well in that, Mrs. Culwin. I thank you for your information,
and if anything new should happen I beg of you to come to me forthwith.
Tell me one thing more: Do you believe that the specter will come again
to-night? Is it the custom of the White Lady to show herself oftener than
once?"

"My husband maintains that if she appears, as at this time, all in white,
she will come again three nights consecutively. So it was when the Elector
Sigismund died. I saw her only once, and she wore black gloves, but the
next evening my husband saw her on the other side of the castle dressed
all in white, and on the third evening the Elector died."

"It would be interesting if the White Lady should com