Sperver's pale face and glowing eyes announced that events were on their way. Yet he was calm, and did not seem surprised at my presence in Knapwurst's room.  
"Fritz," he said , "I am come to fetch you." I rose without answering and followed him. Scarcely were we out of the hut when he took me by the arm and drew me on to the castle.
 
"Mademoiselle Odile wants to see you," he whispered.
 
"What! is she ill?"
 
"No, she is much better, but something or other that is strange is going on. This morning about one o'clock, thinking that the count was nearly breathing his last, I went to wake the countess; with my hand on the bell my heart failed me. 'Why should I break her heart?' I said to myself, 'She will learn her misfortune only too soon; and then to wake her up in the middle of the night, weak and as she is, after such shocks, might kill her at a stroke.' I took a few minutes to consider, and then I resolved I would take it all on myself. I returned to the count's room. I looked in—not a soul was there! Impossible! the man was in the last agonies of death. I ran into the corridor like a madman. No one was there! Into the long gallery—no one! Then I lost my presence of mind, and rushing again into the young countess's room, I rang again. This time she appeared, crying out—'Is my father dead?' 'No.' 'Has he disappeared?' 'Yes, madam. I had gone out for a minute—when I came in again—' 'And Doctor Fritz, where is he?' 'In Hugh Lupus's tower.' 'In that tower?' She started. She threw a dressing-gown around her, took her lamp, and went out. I stayed behind. A quarter of an hour after she came back, her feet covered with snow, and so pale and so cold! She set her lamp upon the chimney-piece, and looking at me , said—'Was it you who put the doctor into that tower?' 'Yes, madam.' 'Unhappy man! you will never know the extent of the harm you have done.' I was about to answer, but she interrupted me—'No more; go and fasten every door and lie down. I will sit up. To-morrow morning you will find Doctor Fritz at Knapwurst's, and bring him to me. Make no noise, and mind, you have seen nothing and know nothing!'"
 
"Is that all, Sperver?" I asked.
 
He nodded gravely.
 
"And about the count?"
 
"He is in again. He is better."
 
We had got to the antechamber. Gideon knocked at the door gently, then he opened it, announcing—"Doctor Fritz."
 
I took a pace forward, and stood in the presence of Odile. Sperver had , closing the door.
 
A strange impression crossed my mind at the sight of the young countess pale and still, leaning upon the back of an arm-chair, her eyes of brightness, and robed in a long dress of rich black . But she stood calm and firm.
 
"Doctor," she said, motioning me to a chair, "pray sit down; I have a very serious matter to speak to you about."
 
I obeyed in silence.
 
In her turn she sat down and seemed to be collecting her thoughts.
 
" or an evil destiny, I know not which, has made you witness of a mystery in which lies involved the honour of my family."
 
So she knew it all!
 
I sat confounded and astonished.
 
"Madam, believe me, it was but by chance—"
 
"It is useless," she interrupted; "I know it all, and it is !"
 
Then, in a heartrending appealing voice, she cried—
 
"My father is not a guilty man!"
 
I , and with hands outstretched cried—
 
"Madam, I know it; I know that the life of your father has been one of the noblest and loveliest."
 
Odile had half-risen from her seat, as if to protest, by , against any supposition that might be injurious to her father. Hearing me myself taking up his defence, she sank back again, and covering her face with her hands, the tears began to flow.
 
"God bless you, sir!" she exclaimed. "I should have died with the very thought that a breath of suspicion was harboured against him."
 
"Ah! madam, who could possibly attach any reality to the action of a somnambulist?"
 
"That is quite true, sir; I had had that thought myself, but appearances—pardon me—yet I feared—still I knew Doctor Fritz was a man of honour."
 
"Pray, madam, be calm."
 
"No," she cried, "let me weep on. It is such a relief; for ten years I have suffered in secret. Oh, how I suffered! That secret, so long shut up in my breast, was me. I should soon have died, like my dear mother. God has had pity upon me, and has sent you, and made you share it with me. Let me tell you all, sir, do let me!"
 
She could speak no more. and tears broke her voice. So it always is with proud and lofty natures. After having conquered grief, and it, buried, and, as it were, crushed down in the secret depths of the mind, they seem happy, or, at any rate, indifferent to the eyes of the uninformed around, and the eye of the most observer might be mistaken; but let a sudden shock break the seal, an unexpected of a portion of the veil, then, as with the crash of a thunderstorm, the tower in which the sufferer hid his sorrow falls in ruins to the ground. The conquered rises more fierce than before his defeat and ; he shakes with fury the prison doors, the frame trembles with long shudderings, sobs and sighs heave the breast, the tears, too long contained within bounds, their banks, bounding and rushing as if after the heavy rain of a thunderstorm.
 
Such was Odile.
 
At length she lifted her beautiful head; she wiped her tear-stained cheeks, and with her arm on the elbow of her chair, her cheek resting on her hand, and her eyes tenderly on a picture on the wall, she resumed in slow and tones:—
 
"When I go back into the past, sir, when I return to my first impressions, my mother's is the picture before me. She was a tall, pale, and silent woman. She was still young at the period to which I am referring. She was scarcely thirty, and yet you would have thought her fifty. Her brow was silvered round with hair white as snow; her thin, hollow cheeks, her sharp, clea............