Victorine clasped the beautiful Emanuela in her arms, and pressed her warmly to her heart. They seemed to know each other already. But Ludwig, casting a glance of sorrow upon the group, said--

"All this was a part of the mutual interdependence of things."

The friends were pleased with Sylvester's tale, and were unanimous in thinking that Edgar's adventures in Spain during the War of Independence, although they might perhaps be considered to be interwoven in merely an episodical form, really const.i.tuted the kernel of the story, and that their happy effect was accounted for by their being founded upon actual historical facts.

"There is no doubt," said Lothair, "that matter which is absolutely historical possesses a certain peculiar quality which the inventive faculty, when it merely hovers about in empty s.p.a.ce, with nothing to anchor upon, cannot attain to. In the same way the skilful introduction of truly historical customs, manners, habitudes and so forth, belonging to any race, or people, or to any particular cla.s.s of people, gives to a work of fiction a life-like colouring which it is difficult otherwise to attain. But I insist upon their being introduced _skilfully_. For there is no doubt that it is not so easy to introduce historical facts--things which have actually happened--into a work of which the incidents belong to the domain of pure imagination, as many people think it is. And it requires a peculiar skilfulness, which everybody is not fortunate enough to possess. In the absence of it there appears merely a pale, distorted simulacrum of life, instead of the freshness of reality. I know works--particularly some by literary ladies--in which one feels, at every instant, how the writer has gone dipping the brush into the colour-box, bringing nothing out of it, after all, but a sort of jumble of strokes of different colours, just where what was wanted was a thoroughly life-like picture."

"I quite agree with you," said Lothair. "And, having just chanced to remember a particular novel, written by an otherwise fairly clever woman (which, notwithstanding all the dippings of her brush into the aforesaid paint-box, does not possess a single atom of real semblance of life, or of poetic truth, from one end of it to the other, so that one cannot remember it for a single moment), I merely wish to say that this particular skill in producing an effect of reality and historical truth, brilliantly distinguishes the works of a writer who has only rather recently become known to us. I mean Walter Scott. I have only read his 'Guy Mannering.' But _ex ungue leonem_. The 'exposition' of this tale is based upon Scotch manners and customs, and matters belonging peculiarly to the place in which the scene of it is laid.

But, without any acquaintance with them, one is carried away by the vivid reality of the characters and incidents in an extraordinary degree, and the 'exposition' is to be termed so utterly masterly just because we are landed _in medias res_ in a moment, as if by the wave of an enchanter's wand. Moreover, Scott has the power of drawing the figures of his pictures with a few touches, in such a way that they seem to come out of their frames, and move about before us in the most living fashion imaginable. Scott is a splendid phenomenon appearing in the literature of Great Britain. He is as vivid as Smollett, though far more cla.s.sic and n.o.ble. But I think he is wanting in that brilliant lire of profound humour which coruscates in the writings of Sterne and Swift."

"I am just in your position, Ottmar," said Vincenz. "'Guy Mannering' is the only work of Scott's which I have read. But I was much struck by the originality of it, and the manner in which, in its methodical progress, it gradually unwinds itself like a clue of thread, gently and quietly, never breaking its firm-spun strands. My chief objection to it is, that (no doubt in faithfulness to British manners) the female characters are so tame and colourless, except that grand gipsy woman--although she is scarcely so much to be called a woman as a kind of spectral apparition. Both of the young ladies in 'Guy Mannering'

remind me of the English coloured engravings, which are all exactly alike--_id est_, as pretty as they are meaningless and expressionless, and as to which one sees distinctly that the originals of them would never allow anything further than 'Yea, yea; nay, nay!' to cross those pretty little delicate lips of theirs, as anything more might lead unto evil. Hogarth's milkmaid is a prototype of all these creatures. Both of the girls in 'Guy Mannering' lack reality--the G.o.d-like vivifying breath of life."

"Might not one wish," said Theodore, "in the case of some of the female characters of one of our most talented writers (particularly in some of his earlier works) that they had a little more flesh and blood, since they are really all so very apt to melt into wreaths of mist when one looks at them closely? Nevertheless, let us love and honour both of those writers--the foreigner and our countryman, because of the true and glorious things which they have bestowed upon us."

"It is remarkable," said Sylvester, "that--unless I mistake--another great writer appeared on the other side of the channel, about the same time as Walter Scott, and has produced works of equal greatness and splendour, but in a different direction. I mean Lord Byron, who appears to me to be much more solid and powerful than Thomas Moore. His 'Siege of Corinth' is a masterpiece, fall of genius. His predominant tendency seems to be towards the gloomy, the mysterious and the terrible; and his 'Vampire' I have avoided reading, for the bare idea of a vampire makes my blood run cold. So far as I understand the matter, a vampire is an animated corpse which sucks the blood of the living."

"Ho! ho!" cried Lothair, laughing, "a writer such as you, my dear friend, Sylvester, must of course have found it necessary to dip more or less deeply into all kinds of accounts concerning magic, witches, sorcery, enchantment, and other such works of the devil, because they are necessary for your work, and part of your stock in trade. And I should suppose you have gone into those subjects yourself with the view of getting some personal experience of them as well. As regards vampirism--that you may see how well read I am in these matters--I will tell you the name of a delightful treatise in which you may study this dark subject. The complete t.i.tle of this little book is 'M. Michael Ranft (Deacon of Nebra). Treatise on the Mastication and Sucking of the Dead in their Graves; wherein the true nature and description of the Hungarian vampires and bloodsuckers is clearly set forth, and all previous writings on this subject are pa.s.sed in review and subjected to criticism.' This t.i.tle in itself will convince you of the thoroughness of this treatise, and you will learn from it that a vampire is nothing other but an accursed creature who lets himself be buried as being dead, and then rises out of the grave and sucks people's blood in their sleep. And those people become vampires in their turn. So that, according to the accounts received from Hungary and quoted by this magister, the inhabitants of whole villages become vampires of the most abominable description. To render those vampires harmless they must be dug out of their graves, a stake driven through their hearts, and their bodies burnt to ashes. Those horrible beings very often do not appear in their own proper forms, but _en masque_. A certain officer, I happen to remember, writing from Belgrade to a celebrated doctor in Leipzig for information as to the true nature of vampires, expresses himself thus: 'In a village called Kinklina it chanced that two brothers were troubled by a vampire, so that one of them used to sit up by the other at night whilst he slept. The one who was watching used to see something like a dog opening the door, but this dog used to make off when he cried out at it. At last one night they both were asleep at the same time, and the vampire bit and sucked a place under the right ear of one of them, leaving a red mark. The man died of this in three days'

time. In conclusion,' said the officer, 'as the people of this place make all this out to be miraculous, I venture to take the liberty of requesting you to tell me your private opinion as to whether it is caused by the intervention of sympathetic, diabolical, or astral spirits. And I remain, with much respect, &c.' Take example by this officer of enquiring mind. As it happens his name occurs to me at this moment. He was an ensign in the Prince Alexander regiment, Sigismund Alexander Friedrich von Kottwitz. The military mind seems to have been considerably exercised on the subject of vampirism about that time.

Magister Ranft quotes in his book an official declaration made by an army surgeon before two of his brother officers concerning the detection and destruction of a vampire. This declaration contains, _inter alia_, the following pa.s.sage: 'Inasmuch as they perceived, from the aforesaid circ.u.mstances, that this was unmistakably a vampire, they drove a stake through its heart, upon which it gave vent to a distinct gasp, emitting a considerable quant.i.ty of blood.' Is that not both interesting and instructive?"

"All this of Magister Ranft's," said Sylvester, "may, no doubt, be sufficiently absurd and even rather crack-brained; but, at the same time, if we keep to the subject of vampirism itself, never minding in what particular fashion it may be treated, it certainly is one of the most horrible and terrible notions imaginable. I can conceive nothing more ghastlily repulsive to the mind."

"Still," said Cyprian, "it is capable of providing a material, when dealt with by a writer of imagination possessed of some poetical tact, which has the power of stirring within us that profound sense of awe which is innate in our hearts, and when touched by the electric impulse from an unseen spirit world causes our soul to thrill, not altogether unpleasantly after a fashion. A due amount of poetic tact on the author's part will prevent the horror of the subject from going so far as to be loathsome; for it generally has such an element of the absurd about it that it does not impress us so deeply as if that were not the case. Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror, and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?"

"My dear, fanciful Cyprian," Theodore said, "there was no occasion for your vindication of the horrible. We all know how wonderfully great writers have moved men's hearts to their very depths by means of that lever. We have only to think of Shakespeare. Moreover, who knew better how to use it than our own glorious Tieck in many of his tales? I need only instance the 'Love-Spell.' The leading idea of that story cannot but make everybody's blood run cold, and the end of it is full of the utmost fear and horror; but still the colours are blended so admirably that, in spite of all the terror and dismay, the mysterious magic charm so seizes upon us that we yield ourselves up to it without an effort to resist. How true is what Tieck puts in the mouth of his Manfred in answer to women's objections to the element of the awe-inspiring in fiction. Of course, what is the fact is that whatsoever of the terrible encounters us in our daily life is just what tortures and tears our hearts with irresistible pain. And, indeed, the cruelty of mankind, as exercised by tyrants, great and small, without pity or mercy, and with the diabolical malignity of h.e.l.l itself, produces misery on a par with anything told of in fiction. And how finely the author says: 'In those imaginary legends the misery cannot reach the world with its rays until they have been broken up into prismatic colours,' and I should have supposed that in that condition they would have been endurable by eyes even not very strong."

"We have often spoken already," said Lothair, "of this most genial writer; the full recognition of whom, in all his grand super-excellence and variety, is reserved for posterity, whilst Wills o' the Wisp rapidly scintillating into our ken and blinding the eye for a moment with borrowed light, go out into darkness just as speedily. On the whole, I believe that the imagination can be moved by very simple means, and that it is often more the _idea_ of the thing than the thing itself which causes our fear. Kleist's tale of the 'Beggar Woman of Lucarno' has in it, at least to me, the most frightening idea that I can think of, and yet how simple it is. A beggar woman is sent contemptuously, as if she were a dog, to lie behind the stove, and dies there. She is heard every night hobbling across the floor towards the stove, but nothing is seen. It is, no doubt, the wonderful colouring of the whole affair Which produces the effect. Not only could Kleist 'dip'

into the aforesaid colour-box, but he could lay the colours on, with the power and the genius of the most finished master. He did not need to raise a vampire out of the grave, all he needed was an old woman."

"This discussion about vampirism," said Cyprian, "reminds me of a ghastly story which I either heard or read a very long time ago. But I think I heard it, because I seem to remember that the person who told it said that the circ.u.mstances had actually happened, and mentioned the name of the family and of their country seat where it took place. But if this story is known to you as being in print, please to stop me and prevent my going on with it, because there's nothing more wearisome than to tell people things which they have known for ever so long."

"I foresee," said Ottmar, "that you are going to give us something unusually awful and terrible. But remember Saint Serapion and be as concise as you can, so that Vincenz may have his turn; for I see that he is waiting impatiently to read us that long-promised story of his."

"Hush! hush!" said Vincenz. "I could not wish anything better than that Cyprian should hang up a fine dark canvas by way of a background so as to throw out the figures of my tale, which I think are brightly and variedly coloured, and certainly excessively active. So begin, my Cypria.n.u.s, and be as gloomy, as frightful, as terrible as the vampirish Lord Byron himself, though I know nothing about him, as I have never read a word of his writings."

Count Hyppolitus (began Cyprian) had just returned from a long time spent in travelling to take possession of the rich inheritance which his father, recently dead, had left to him. The ancestral home was situated in the most beautiful and charming country imaginable, and the income from the property was amply sufficient to defray the cost of most extensive improvements. Whatever in the way of architecture and landscape gardening had struck the Count during his travels--particularly in England--as specially delightful and apposite, he was going to reproduce in his own demesne. Architects, landscape gardeners, and labourers of all sorts arrived on the scene as they were wanted, and there commenced at once a complete reconstruction of the place, whilst an extensive park was laid out on the grandest scale, which involved the including within its boundaries of the church, the parsonage, and the burial ground. All those improvements the Count, who possessed the necessary knowledge, superintended himself, devoting himself to this occupation body and soul; so that a year slipped away without its ever having occurred to him to take an old uncle's advice and let the light of his countenance shine in the Residenz before the eyes of the young ladies, so that the most beautiful, the best, and the most n.o.bly born amongst them might fall to his share as wife.

One morning, as he was sitting at his drawing table sketching the ground-plan of a new building, a certain elderly Baroness--distantly related to his father--was announced as having come to call. When Hyppolitus heard her name he remembered that his father had always spoken of her with the greatest indignation--nay, with absolute abhorrence, and had often warned people who were going to approach her to keep aloof, without explaining what the danger connected with her was. If he was questioned more closely, he said there were certain matters as to which it was better to keep silence. Thus much was certain, that there were rumours current in the Residenz of some most remarkable and unprecedented criminal trial in which the Baroness had been involved, which had led to her separation from her husband, driven her from her home--which was at some considerable distance--and for the suppression of the consequences of which she was indebted to the prince's forbearance. Hyppolitus felt a very painful and disagreeable impression at the coming of a person whom his father had so detested, although the reasons for this detestation were not known to him. But the laws of hospitality, more binding in the country than in town, obliged him to receive this visit.

Never had any one, without being at all ill-favoured in the usual acceptation of that term, made by her exterior such a disagreeable impression upon the Count as did this Baroness. When she came in she looked him through and through with a glance of fire, and then she cast her eyes down and apologized for her coming in terms which were almost over humble. She expressed her sorrow that his father, influenced by prejudices against her with which her enemies had impregnated his mind, had formed a mortal hatred to her, and though she was almost starving, in the depths of her poverty he had never given her the smallest help or support. As she had now, unexpectedly as she said, come into possession of a small sum of money she had found it possible to leave the Residenz and go to a small country town a short distance off.

However, as she was engaged in this journey she had not found it possible to resist the desire to see the son of the man whom, notwithstanding his irreconcilable hatred, she had never ceased to regard with feelings of the highest esteem. The tone in which all this was spoken had the moving accents of sincerity, and the Count was all the more affected by it that, having turned his eyes away from her repulsive face, he had fixed them upon a marvellously charming and beautiful creature who was with her. The Baroness finished her speech.

The Count did not seem to be aware that she had done so. He remained silent. She begged him to pardon--and attribute to her embarra.s.sment at being where she was--her having neglected to explain that her companion was her daughter Aurelia. On this the Count found words, and blushing up to the eyes implored the Baroness, with the agitation of a young man overpowered by love, to let him atone in some degree for his lather's shortcomings--the result of misunderstandings--and to favour him by paying him a long visit. In warmly enforcing this request he took her hand. But the words and the breath died away on his lips and his blood ran cold. For he felt his hand grasped as if in a vice by fingers cold and stiff as death, and the tall bony form of the Baroness, who was staring at him with eyes evidently deprived of the faculty of sight, seemed to him in its gay many tinted attire like some bedizened corpse.

"Oh, good heavens! how unfortunate just at this moment," Aurelia cried out, and went on to lament in a gentle heart-penetrating voice that her mother was now and then suddenly seized by a tetanic spasm, but that it generally pa.s.sed off very quickly without its being necessary to take any measures with regard to it.

Hyppolitus disengaged himself with some difficulty from the Baroness, and all the glowing life of sweetest love delight came back to him as he took Aurelia's hand and pressed it warmly to his lips. Although he had almost come to man's estate it was the first time that he felt the full force of pa.s.sion, so that it was impossible for him to hide what he felt, and the manner in which Aurelia received his avowal in a n.o.ble, simple, child-like delight, kindled the fairest of hopes within him. The Baroness recovered in a few minutes, and, seemingly quite unaware of what had been happening, expressed her grat.i.tude to the Count for his invitation to pay a visit of some duration at the Castle, saying she would be but too happy to forget the injustice with which his father had treated her.

Thus the Count's household arrangements and domestic position were completely changed, and he could not but believe that some special favour of fortune had brought to him the only woman in all the world who, as a warmly beloved and deeply adored wife, was capable of bestowing upon him the highest conceivable happiness.

The Baroness's manner of conduct underwent little alteration. She continued to be silent, grave, much wrapped up in herself, and when opportunity offered, evinced a gentle disposition, and a heart disposed towards any innocent enjoyment. The Count had become accustomed to the death-like whiteness of her face, to the very remarkable network of wrinkles which covered it, and to the generally spectral appearance which she displayed; but all this he set down to the invalid condition of her health, and also, in some measure, to a disposition which she evinced to gloomy romanticism. The servants told him that she often went out for walks in the night-time, through the park to the churchyard. He was much annoyed that his father's prejudices had influenced him to the extent that they had; and the most earnest recommendations of his uncle that he should conquer the feeling which had taken possession of him, and give up a relationship which must sooner or later drive him to his ruin, had no effect upon him.

In complete certainty of Aurelia's sincere affection, he asked for her hand; and it may be imagined with what joy the Baroness received this proposal, which transferred her into the lap of luxury from a position of the deepest poverty. The pallor and the strange expression, which spoke of some invincible inward pain or trouble, had disappeared from Aurelia's face. The blissfulness of love beamed in her eyes, and shimmered in roses on her cheeks.

On the morning of the wedding-day a terrible event shattered the Count's hopes. The Baroness was found lying on her face dead, not far from the churchyard: and when the Count was looking out of his window on getting up, full of the bliss of the happiness which he had attained, her body was being brought back to the Castle. He supposed she was only in one of her usual attacks; but all efforts to bring her back to life were ineffectual. She was dead. Aurelia, instead of giving way to violent grief, seemed rather to be struck dumb and tearless by this blow, which appeared to have a paralyzing effect on her.

The Count was much distressed for her, and only ventured--most cautiously and most gently--to remind her that her orphaned condition rendered it necessary that conventionalities should be disregarded, and that the most essential matter in the circ.u.mstances was to hasten on the marriage as much as possible, notwithstanding the loss of her mother. At this Aurelia fell into the Count's arms, and, whilst a flood of tears ran down her cheeks, cried in a most eager manner, and in a voice which was shrill with urgency:

"Yes, yes! For the love of all the saints. For the sake of my soul's salvation--yes!"

The Count ascribed this burst of emotion to the bitter sense that, in her orphaned condition, she did not know whither to betake herself, seeing that she could not go on staying in the Castle. He took pains to procure a worthy matron as a companion for her, till in a few weeks, the wedding-day again came round. And this time no mischance interfered with it, and it crowned the bliss of Aurelia and Hyppolitus. But Aurelia had all this while been in a curiously strained and excited condition. It was not grief for her mother, but she seemed to be unceasingly, and without cessation, tortured by some inward anxiety. In the midst of the most delicious love-pa.s.sage she would suddenly clasp the Count in her arms, pale as death, and like a person suddenly seized by some terror--just as if she were trying her very utmost to resist some extraneous power which was threatening to force her to destruction--and would cry, "Oh, no--no! Never, never!" Now that she was married, however, it seemed that this strange, overstrained, excited condition in which she had been, abated and left her, and the terrible inward anxiety and disturbance under which she had been labouring seemed to disappear.

The Count could not but suspect the existence of some secret evil mystery by which Aurelia's inner being was tormented, but he very properly thought it would be unkind and unfeeling to ask her about it whilst her excitement lasted, and she herself avoided any explanation on the subject. However, a time came when he thought he might venture to hint gently, that perhaps it would lie well if she indicated to him the cause of the strange condition of her mind. She herself at once said it would be a satisfaction to her to open her mind to him, her beloved husband. And great was his amazement to learn that what was at the bottom of the mystery, was the atrociously wicked life which her mother had led, that was so perturbing her mind.

"Can there be anything more terrible," she said, "than to have to hate, detest, and abhor one's own mother?"

Thus the prejudices (as they were called) of his father and uncle had not been unfounded, and the Baroness had deceived him in the most deliberate manner. He was obliged to confess to himself--and he made no secret of it--that it was a fortunate circ.u.mstance that the Baroness had died on the morning of his wedding-day. But Aurelia declared that as soon as her mother was dead she had been seized by dark and terrible terrors, and could not help thinking that her mother would rise from her grave, and drag her from her husband's arms into perdition.

She said she dimly remembered, one morning when she was a mere child, being awakened by a frightful commotion in the house. Doors opened and shut; strangers' voices cried out in confusion. At last, things becoming quieter, her nurse took her in her arms, and carried her into a large room where there were many people, and the man who had often played with her, and given her sweetmeats, lying stretched on a long table. This man she had always called "Papa," and she stretched her hands out to him, and wanted to kiss him. But his lips, always warm before, were cold as ice, and Aurelia broke into violent weeping, without knowing why. The nurse took her to a strange house, where she remained a long while, till at last a lady came and took her away in a carriage. This was her mother, who soon after took her to the Residenz.

When Aurelia got to be about sixteen, a man came to the house whom her mother welcomed joyfully, and treated with much confidentiality, receiving him with much intimacy of friendship, as being a dear old friend. He came more and more frequently, and the Baroness's style of existence was soon greatly altered for the better. Instead of living in an attic, and subsisting on the poorest of fare, and wearing the most wretched old clothes, she took a fine lodging in the most fashionable quarter, wore fine dresses, ate and drank with this stranger of the best and most expensive food and drink daily (he was her daily guest), and took her part in all the public pleasurings which the Residenz had to offer.

Aurelia was the person upon whom this bettering of her mother's circ.u.mstances (evidently attributable solely to the stranger) exercised no influence whatever. She remained shut up in her room when her mother went out to enjoy herself in the stranger's company, and was obliged to live just as miserably as before. This man, though about forty, had a very fresh and youthful appearance, a tall, handsome person, and a face by no means devoid of a certain amount of manly good looks.

Notwithstanding this, he was repugnant to Aurelia on account of his style of behaviour. He seemed to try to constrain himself, to conduct himself like a gentleman and person of some cultivation, but there was constantly, and most evidently, piercing through this exterior veneer the unmistakable evidence of his really being a totally uncultured person, whose manners and habits were those of the very lowest ranks of the people. And the way in which he began to look at Aurelia filled her with terror--nay, with an abhorrence of which she could not explain the reason to herself.

Up to this point the Baroness had never taken the trouble to say a single word to Aurelia about this stranger. But now she told her his name, adding that this Baron was a man of great wealth, and a distant relation. She lauded his good looks, and his various delightful qualities, and ended by asking Aurelia if she thought she could bring herself to take a liking to him. Aurelia made no secret of the inward detestation which she felt for him. The Baroness darted a glance of lightning at her, which terrified her excessively, and told her she was a foolish, ignorant creature. After this she was kinder to her than she had ever been before. She was provided with grand dresses in the height of the fashion, and taken to share in all the public pleasures. The man now strove to gain her favour in a manner which rendered him more and more abhorrent to her. But her delicate, maidenly instincts were wounded in the most mortal manner, when an unfortunate accident rendered her an unwilling, secret witness of an abominable atrocity between her abandoned and depraved mother and him. When, a few days after this, this man, after having taken a good deal of wine, clasped Aurelia in his arms in a way which left no doubt as to his intention, her desperation gave her strength, and she pushed him from her so that he fell down on his back. She rushed away and bolted herself in her own room. The Baroness told her, very calmly and deliberately, that, inasmuch as the Baron paid all the household expenses, and she had not the slightest intention of going back to the old poverty of their previous life, this was a case in which any absurd coyness would be both ludicrous and inconvenient, and that she would really have to make up her mind to comply with the Baron's wishes, because, if not, he had threatened to part company at once. Instead of being affected by Aurelia's bitter tears and agonized intreaties, the old woman, breaking into the most brazen and shameless laughter, talked in the most depraved manner of a state of matters which would cause Aurelia to bid, for ever, farewell to every feeling of enjoyment of life in such unrestrained and detestable depravity, defying and insulting all sense of ordinary propriety, so that her shame and terror were undescribable at what she was obliged to hear. In fact she gave herself up for lost, and her only means of salvation appeared to her to be immediate flight.

She had managed to possess herself of the key of the hall door, had got together the few little necessaries which she absolutely required, and, just after midnight, was moving softly through the dimly-lighted front hall, at a time when she thought her mother was sure to be last asleep.

She was on the point of stepping quietly out into the street, when the door opened with a clang, and heavy footsteps came noisily up the steps. The Baroness came staggering and stumbling into the hall, right up to Aurelia's feet, nothing upon her but a kind of miserable wrapper all covered with dirt, her breast and her arms naked, her grey hair all hanging down and dishevelled. And close after her came the stranger, who seized her by the hair, and dragged her into the middle of the hall, crying out in a yelling voice--

"Wait, you old devil, you witch of h.e.l.l! I'll serve you up a wedding breakfast!" And with a good thick cudgel which he had in his hand he set to and belaboured and maltreated her in the most shameful manner.

She made a terrible screaming and outcry, whilst Aurelia, scarcely knowing what she was about, screamed aloud out of the window for help.

It chanced that there was a patrol of armed police just pa.s.sing. The men came at once into the house.

"Seize him!" cried the Baroness, writhing in convulsions of rage and pain. "Seize him--hold him fast! Look at his bare back. He's----"

When the police sergeant heard the Baroness speak the name he shouted out in the greatest delight--

"Hoho! We've got you at last, Devil Alias, have we?" And in spite of his violent resistance, they marched him off.

But notwithstanding all this which had been happening, the Baroness had understood well enough what Aurelia's idea had been. She contented herself with taking her somewhat roughly by the arm, pushing her into her room, and locking her up in it, without saying a word. She went out early the next morning, and did not come back till late in the evening.

And during this time Aurelia remained a prisoner in her room, never seeing nor hearing a creature, and having nothing to eat or drink. This went on for several days. The Baroness often glared at her with eyes flashing with anger, and seemed to be wrestling with some decision, until, one evening, letters came which seemed to cause her satisfaction.

"Silly creature! all this is your fault. However, it seems to be all coming right now, and all I hope is that the terrible punishment which the Evil Spirit was threatening you with may not come upon you." This was what the Baroness said to Aurelia, and then she became more kind and friendly, and Aurelia, no longer distressed by the presence of the horrible man, and having given up the idea of escaping, was allowed a little more freedom.

Some time had elapsed, when one day, as Aurelia was sitting alone in her room, she heard a great clamour approaching in the street. The maid came running in, and said that they were taking the hangman's son of ---- to prison, that he had been branded on the back there for robbery and murder, and had escaped, and was now retaken.