I am now going to tell you something so strange that it will require all your faith in my veracity to
 believe my story. It is not only true, nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an eye-witness.

 It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he sometimes did, to take a little
 ramble with him along that beautiful forest vista which I have mentioned as lying in front of the
 schloss.

 "General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my father, as we pursued
 our walk.

 He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had expected his arrival next day. He was
 to have brought with him a young lady, his niece and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had
 never seen, but whom I had heard described as a very charming girl, and in whose society I had
 promised myself many happy days. I was more disappointed than a young lady living in a town, or
 a bustling neighbourhood can possibly imagine. This visit, and the new acquaintance it promised,
 had furnished my day dream for many weeks.

 "And how soon does he come?" I asked.

 "Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say," he answered. "And I am very glad now, dear,
 that you never knew Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt."

 "And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious.

 "Because the poor young lady is dead," he replied. "I quite forgot I had not told you, but you
 were not in the room when I received the General's letter this evening."

 I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his first letter, six or seven weeks
 before, that she was not so well as he would wish her, but there was nothing to suggest the
 remotest suspicion of danger.

 "Here is the General's letter," he said, handing it to me. "I am afraid he is in great affliction; the
 letter appears to me to have been written very nearly in distraction."

 We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with
 all its melancholy splendour behind the sylvan horizon, and the stream that flows beside our home,
 and passes under the steep old bridge I have mentioned, wound through many a group of noble
 trees, almost at our feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimson of the sky. General Spielsdorf's
 letter was so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places so self-contradictory, that I read it
 twice over—the second time aloud to my father—and was still unable to account for it, except by
 supposing that grief had unsettled his mind.

 It said "I have lost my darling daughter, for as such I loved her. During the last days of dear
 Bertha's illness I was not able to write to you. Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost
 her, and now learn all, too late. She died in the peace of innocence, and in the glorious hope of a
 blessed futurity. The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all. I thought I was
 receiving into my house innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens!
 what a fool have I been! I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of her
 sufferings. She is gone without so much as conjecturing the nature of her illness, and the accursed
 passion of the agent of all this misery. I devote my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a
 monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. At present there
 is scarcely a gleam of light to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable affectation
 of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy—all— too late. I cannot write or talk collectedly now. I
 am distracted. So soon as I shall have a little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to
 enquiry, which may possibly lead me as far as Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two months
 hence, or earlier if I live, I will see you—that is, if you permit me; I will then tell you all that I
 scarce dare put upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me, dear friend."

 In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt my eyes filled
 with tears at the sudden intelligence; I was startled, as well as profoundly disappointed.

 The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the General's letter to my
 father.

 It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon the possible meanings of the violent
 and incoherent sentences which I had just been reading. We had nearly a mile to walk before
 reaching the road that passes the schloss in front, and by that time the moon was shining brilliantly.
 At the drawbridge we met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who had come
 out, without their bonnets, to enjoy the exquisite moonlight.

 We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the
 drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them the beautiful scene.

 The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our left the narrow road wound
 away under clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. At the right the
 same road crosses the steep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which once
 guarded that pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and
 showing in the shadows some grey ivy-clustered rocks.

 Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, marking the distances
 with a transparent veil; and here and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight.

 No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heard made it melancholy; but
 nothing could disturb its character of profound serenity, and the enchanted glory and vagueness of
 the prospect.

 My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking in silence over the expanse beneath
 us. The two good governesses, standing a little way behind us, discoursed upon the scene, and
 were eloquent upon the moon.

 Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and talked and sighed poetically.
 Mademoiselle De Lafontaine—in right of her father who was a German, assumed to be
 psychological, metaphysical, and something of a mystic—now declared that when the moon shone
 with a light so intense it was well known that it indicated a special spiritual activity. The effect of
 the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it
 acted on nervous people, it had marvelous physical influences connected with life. Mademoiselle
 related that her cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on such a
 night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light on the moon, had wakened, after a dream of
 an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his
 countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.

 "The moon, this night," she said, "is full of idyllic and magnetic influence—and see, when you look
 behind you at the front of the schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery
 splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests."

 There are indolent styles of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is
 pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies' conversation.

 "I have got into one of my moping moods to-night," said my father, after a silence, and quoting
 Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up our English, he used to read aloud, he said:

      "'In truth I know not why I am so sad.
      It wearies me: you say it wearies you;
      But how I got it—came by it.'

 "I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great misfortune were hanging over us. I suppose the poor
 General's afflicted letter has had something to do with it."

 At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon the road, arrested
 our attention.

 They seemed to be approaching from the high ground overlooking the bridge, and very soon the
 equipage emerged from that point. Two horsemen first crossed the bridge, then came a carriage
 drawn by four horses, and two men rode behind.

 It seemed to be the travelling carriage of a person of rank; and we were all immediately absorbed
 in watching that very unusual spectacle. It became, in a few moments, greatly more interesting, for
 just as the carriage had passed the summit of the steep bridge, one of the leaders, taking fright,
 communicated his panic to the rest, and after a plunge or two, the whole team broke into a wild
 gallop together, and dashing between the horsemen who rode in front, came thundering along the
 road towards us with the speed of a hurricane.

 The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, long-drawn screams of a female
 voice from the carriage window.

 We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest with various ejaculations of
 terror.

 Our suspense did not last long. Just before you reach the castle drawbridge, on the route they
 were coming, there stands by the roadside a magnificent lime tree, on the other stands an ancient
 stone cross, at sight of which the horses, now going at a pace that was perfectly frightful, swerved
 so as to bring the wheel over the projecting roots of the tree.

 I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and turned my head away; at
 the same moment I heard a cry from my lady-friends, who had gone on a little.

 Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of utter confusion. Two of the horses were on the
 ground, the carriage lay upon its side with two wheels in the air; the men were busy removing the
 traces, and a lady, with a commanding air and figure had got out, and stood with clasped hands,
 raising the handkerchief that was in them every now and then to her eyes. Through the carriage
 door was now lifted a young lady, who appeared to be lifeless. My dear old father was already
 beside the elder lady, with his hat in his hand, evidently tendering his aid and the resources of his
 schloss. The lady did not appear to hear him, or to have eyes for anything but the slender girl who
 was being placed against the slope of the bank.

 I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but she was certainly not dead. My father,
 who piqued himself on being something of a physician, had just had his fingers on her wrist and
 assured the lady, who declared herself her mother, that her pulse, though faint and irregular, was
 undoubtedly still distinguishable. The lady clasped her hands and looked upward, as if in a
 momentary transport of gratitude; but immediately she broke out again in that theatrical way which
 is, I believe, natural to some people.

 She was what is called a fine looking woman for her time of life, and must have been handsome;
 she was tall, but not thin, and dressed in black velvet, and looked rather pale, but with a proud
 and commanding countenance, though now agitated strangely.

 "Who was ever being so born to calamity?" I heard her say, with clasped hands, as I came up.
 "Here am I, on a journey of life and death, in prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose
 all. My child will not have recovered sufficiently to resume her route for who can say how long. I
 must leave her: I cannot, dare not, delay. How far on, sir, can you tell, is the nearest village? I must
 leave her there; and shall not see my darling, or even hear of her till my return, three months
 hence."

 I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered earnestly in his ear: "Oh! papa, pray ask her to let
 her stay with us—it would be so delightful. Do, pray."

 "If Madame will entrust her child to the care of my daughter, and of her good gouvernante,
 Madame Perrodon, and permit her to remain as our guest, under my charge, until her return, it will
 confer a distinction and an obligation upon us, and we shall treat her with all the care and devotion
 which so sacred a trust deserves."

 "I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry too cruelly," said the lady,
 distractedly.

 "It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a very great kindness at the moment when we most
 need it. My daughter has just been disappointed by a cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she
 had long anticipated a great deal of happiness. If you confide this young lady to our care it will be
 her best consolation. The nearest village on your route is distant, and affords no such inn as you
 could think of placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her to continue her journey for any
 considerable distance without danger. If, as you say, you cannot suspend your journey, you must
 part with her to-night, and nowhere could you do so with more honest assurances of care and
 tenderness than here."

 There was something in this lady's air and appearance so distinguished and even imposing, and in
 her manner so engaging, as to impress one, quite apart from the dignity of her equipage, with a
 conviction that she was a person of consequence.

 By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the horses, quite tractable, in the
 traces again.

 The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied was not quite so affectionate as one might
 have anticipated from the beginning of the scene; then she beckoned slightly to my father, and
 withdrew two or three steps with him out of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed and stern
 countenance, not at all like that with which she had hitherto spoken.

 I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to perceive the change, and also unspeakably
 curious to learn what it could be that she was speaking, almost in his ear, with so much
 earnestness and rapidity.

 Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus employed, then she turned, and a few
 steps brought her to where her daughter lay, supported by Madame Perrodon. She kneeled
 beside her for a moment and whispered, as Madame supposed, a little benediction in her ear; then
 hastily kissing her she stepped into her carriage, the door was closed, the footmen in stately
 liveries jumped up behind, the outriders spurred on, the postillions cracked their whips, the horses
 plunged and broke suddenly into a furious canter that threatened soon again to become a gallop,
 and the carriage whirled away, followed at the same rapid pace by the two horsemen in the rear

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