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of the wall, and raising himself up, endeavoured to look into his mistress's casement-the shutters were closed. The next window was barricaded in the same wayand the next, and the next. She was then removed into the interior! But the unusual stillness, the deathlike silence of the whole house! He resolved not to leave the spot till he had solved the mystery; and his anxiety to see Ida was now merged in the sole wish to know what had become of her. It is strange to observe the fantastic tricks of the imagination under such circumstances. "She is dead!" cried he to himself with a sudden shiver, and without reflecting on the consequence of a step which a few moments before he would have deemed of such importance, he rushed round to the principal door, and knocked so loud and long that the whole neighbourhood resounded with the din. Even to this there was no answer; but, on his repeating the application, a thin querulous voice within uttered faintly some religious supplication for protection, and a trembling hand began to withdraw the bolts.

When at length an old female servant whom he knew, put out her face, while the play of the lamp which she shaded with her shrivelled hand gave an air of ghastliness to her expression of terror, the visiter stared on her without being able for some moments to utter a word.

"Madame Dallheimer?" at last he stammered. "She is gone, and all the family."

"Where?" demanded Carl faintly.

"I cannot tell; it was kept a secret from the very servants who accompanied them."

"When?"

"Early in the morning."

"Escorted?

66

By four of the domestics, mounted and armed." This was the carriage he had seen when he forsook the public road! It was Ida herself who had waved her handkerchief to him, either in derision or farewell! The young man groaned aloud, and staggered from the door without uttering another word.

Ida was lost to him for ever! Well did he know her mother's strength of purpose, as well as worldly cunning. The very direction they had taken was probably a feigned one; and even had he been provided with funds for the journey, pursuit would be hopeless. He had confessed to his mistress what were his habits of life; and when, instead of spurning him with horror and contempt, she had broken through the rules of her sex's modesty, and offered herself for his acceptance, he had refused the gift without a word of explanation. This was the damning position in which he stood. It was vain to speculate on the signal from the carriage-no ingenuity could draw from it a ray of comfort. Ida had been deceived, insulted, rejected; her love by this time was only the memory of a weakness; her anger would grow into hatred, her hatred fade into forgetfulness; and, if ever the changing tide of human affairs should throw him in her way again, he would find her the wife of a man worthy of her love, her beauty, her attainments, rank, and fortune.

Scarcely conscious of his present object or destination, Carl Benzel found himself entering the court of the old chateau, where he had intended in the morning to seek shelter. The broken walls, the long grass, mingled with docks and nettles, that filled up the area between, the black and ruinous appearance of the

mansion itself, and the wailing sound of the night wind, answered by creaking doors, and flapping shutters in the interior, in many places open to the elements, conspired to produce a scene of desolation such as he had never witnessed before. When last on the spot, with Ida leaning on his arm, that old house was a fairy palace for the imagination to revel in! Shivering at the contrast he approached the door.

His low knock was unanswered; he knocked again, louder and louder. The sound echoed through the interior, and dying away in the distant galleries, left all as silent as before. He tried the latch, but without hope, and it yielded to his hand. When he entered, the wind bursting in at the same time rushed through the passage with a violence that shook the whole house. The flapping of doors, rattling of windows, and rustling of hangings, told of the intrusion in the remotest apartments; and Carl fancied, with German excitability, that a sound of unearthly laughter mingled in the distance with the din. The next moment the halldoor shut behind him with a noise like a clap of thunder, and he found himself in utter darkness.

Groping through the passage, he at length found his way, although with considerable difficulty, to the apartment that was tenanted by his nurse. The old woman was doubtless in bed and asleep, having left the outer door unfastened either through the forgetfulness of age, or in the security of conscions poverty. On entering he was no longer in absolute darkness; for the moon, having struggled through the thick clouds that had all the evening enveloped her, threw a spectral gleam into the room. He was so far correct, old Christine was in bed; but the confusion that reigned throughout the apartment made him fear

that she was confined there by illness. He at first hesitated to disturb her; but his clothes were completely soaked, and he already felt the sensations that precede a fever induced by cold. It was necessary if possible to obtain a fire; but he knew not where to find the materials.

"Christine!" said he, softly; and then in a louder whisper. No answer. The old woman slept soundly. He approached the bed: she seemed to have read herself asleep, for a book was still in her hand—and in that book the young man recognised, with an emotion that of late had been a stranger to his breast, a Bible which had been presented to her by his mother. He shook her gently.

"Christine!" He took the book from her fingers; but she did not stir. A cold thrill ran through the veins of the foster-son, and putting his hand hastily upon her brow, he perceived that he stood by the side of a corpse.

A withering feeling of remorse beset the mind of Carl Benzel; for he concluded that his old nurse had died in destitution, perhaps in hunger: but in a few moments a stronger beam of the moon disclosed some provisions and a few copper coins upon the table at the bed side; and the re-action produced by this relief was so great that he was able to search for the tinder in some composure of mind, and at length succeeded in lighting a fire. It would have been a strange spectacle to see in that desolate mansion, and most desolate room, a youth, evidently of the higher ranks of society, with dripping and disordered dress, seated by the bed-side, his elbow leaning on the bed, and his face resting on his hand, while he gazed the live-long night upon the face of a corpse!

In the grey dawn of the morning he dug a grave in the garden, and with such religious service as he could perform, committed the body to the earth. He then removed the articles of furniture that were absolutely necessary, to a smaller and more distant apartment, where he took up his solitary abode.

A low fever began to prey upon the sources of life; and this was at times accompanied by a certain aberration of mind. The Bible, to which his attention had been attracted, as it seemed to him by an especial providence, was now rarely out of his hand; but disturbed by the recollection of the theological dogmas which had perplexed his days of study, the book the best calculated to soothe and enlighten, only exasperated his disease of body and mind. In the mean time no human being came near the house; which, in fact, lay under an imputation, too readily attached to old women and old mansions, of being haunted by evil spirits. Christine had been rarely seen by the neighbours at any time, and now that she did not appear at all it is no wonder that she was speedily forgotten.

Carl Benzel was thus left to his fever and his frenzy ; amusing himself with understanding the Bible backwards, as a witch's prayer should be recited; his love cooling as his brain heated, and his enthusiasm fast sinking into confirmed insanity.

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