not account. What possible reference could the poor girl's story have to her! The woman had come quite close to her, and went on in a still lower voice: "Yesterday afternoon, just at this time, my husband was behind there at the barn, Marie was ironing, with the child in the room next the kitchen, where, if you remember, the window looks on to the garden, and I was here washing, when some riders came up to the farm----" Elsa's heart gave a leap, and she involuntarily turned away from the woman. "Good heavens!" exclaimed the latter; "I trusted the Captain. He told me the day before yesterday that there was not a word of truth in the report about here that you were going to marry the Count. If it is true, I dare not say another word!"

"Thank God it is not the case," said Elsa, by a strong effort overcoming her emotion. "The Count is then the man!"

Frau Pölitz nodded. "She cannot any longer deny it, and indeed she confessed as much to me, when I brought her to herself. They had dismounted and come into the house; the Count said that the young lady was unwell, and begged for a cup of coffee. May God forgive him, but it was certainly untrue, as the young lady was not the least unwell; on the contrary, did nothing but laugh, and they went through the house straight into the garden. A few old trees stand in it, and the hedges are also rather overgrown, so that it is quite sheltered; but Marie must have seen more than the poor girl could bear; and as I stood there by the stove she suddenly shrieked out, so that I thought she had let the heater of the iron fall on her foot, or that the child had hurt itself, and rushed in. There she lay on her back on the floor, and I thought she was dead, as she neither moved nor stirred, and was cold as ice and white as a sheet. You may easily imagine how frightened I was, and I may thank God that it was no worse. I called out, and Rike, our maidservant, came, and I sent her for my husband; and it was well I did so, for Marie came to herself, looked all round her with a bewildered, glassy stare, and then to the window, and asked timidly, 'Is he still there?' I knew then for certain, and begged her, for God's sake, to keep silence before Carl, my husband. But since then he has been so odd; I am afraid he must have remarked something when he went into the garden to tell the Count that they must wait a little for the coffee and so forth. The Count would not hear anything more about the coffee, and the young lady told me how sorry she was. She had had no idea that we had an invalid in the house. Upon which my husband said, 'Excuse me, ma'am, my sister is not an invalid, she has only just been taken ill;' and he said it so strangely, with his eyes fixed as if some other thought were in his mind. What shall I do? Shall I tell him? What do you think?"

Frau Pölitz held both Elsa's hands clasped in hers and looked anxiously into her eyes.

"I think--yes," said Elsa. "You cannot keep it from him in the end, and a wife should have no secrets from her husband. It seems to me that all the evil in the world comes from our keeping and concealing from one another our most sacred feelings, as if we had reason to be ashamed of them; as if we did not live in them--only in them!"

She stood up and seized her hat and shawl from the round table.

"You are going already?" said Frau Pölitz sorrowfully; "but indeed it is a long way to Warnow."

"I have much farther to go," said Elsa, putting on her hat. "Three miles, did you say?"

"Where to?"

"To Wissow Head." Frau Pölitz stared at Elsa, as if she were talking nonsense. "Yes," said Elsa, "to the Head. I cannot miss the way?"

"A road goes from here straight through the marshes, but makes a great bend at Ahlbeck on account of the brook. But, my dear young lady, for heaven's sake what do you want to go there for?"

Elsa had put on her shawl, and now grasped Frau Pölitz by both hands. "I will tell you. To have one look--one look only--at the place where the man I love lives. You need not look at me so anxiously, dear Frau Pölitz, He really lives at Wissow."

"The Superintendent of Pilots?" exclaimed Frau Pölitz.

She sat down and burst into tears of joy.

"You also love him," said Elsa with a proud smile.

"Oh! indeed I do," cried Frau Pölitz, sobbing; "and oh! how happy my husband will be! May I tell him----"

"You may tell whom you will."

"Oh! how pleased I am! You could not have given me greater pleasure than to tell me this. It makes me feel quite young again. Such a charming gentleman as he is, and such a dear, dear young lady! I feel sure that everything must go right now."

She kissed Elsa's hand again and again, with hot tears. Elsa gently disengaged herself. "I will tell you everything next time. Now I must go."

"No," said Frau Pölitz, standing up, "you must not walk such a long way; my husband shall drive you."

"I am determined to walk," said Elsa.

"You cannot be back before dark. It is already beginning to get dark, and we are certainly going to have bad weather."

Elsa would allow no objection to weigh with her. She was a good walker and had eyes like a hawk. She feared neither the distance nor the darkness.

With that she once more shook Frau Pölitz's hand, and the next minute had left room, and house, and farm, and was walking quickly through the fields along the road, of which the farmer's wife had spoken, towards the headland, whose broad mass stood out from the wide plain.

CHAPTER III.

It was three miles, Frau Pölitz had to Wissow Head, but it seemed to Elsa as if the long, winding road would never come to an end. And yet she walked so quickly, that the little empty waggon which at first was far ahead of her, was now as far behind. That wretched vehicle was the only sign of human life. Besides that, only the brown plain, like a desert waste, as far as her eye could reach. No large trees, only here and there a few stunted willows, and some wretched shrubs by the ditches which intersected each other here and there, and by the broad sluggish stream which she now crossed by means of a rickety and unprotected wooden bridge. The stream evidently flowed from the chain of hills on her right hand, at the foot of which Elsa could see far apart the buildings of Gristow and of Damerow, the two other properties belonging to Warnow.

Taking a long circuit, she gradually ascended to Wissow Head, which lay straight before her, whilst the plain to the left stretched without the smallest undulation to the low-lying dunes, which only showed white here and there over the edge of the moor. Only once, for a few minutes, a leaden-grey streak showed through a gap by which the brook made its way, which Elsa knew must be the sea, although she could scarcely distinguish it from the sky, for the sky above her was the same leaden colour too, only that towards the east, over the sea, it seemed somewhat darker than over the hills to the west, and in the leaden firmament hung here and there a solitary whitish speck like the smoke of gunpowder, which in the motionless air remained always in the same spot. Not the slightest breath was stirring, but from time to time a strange murmur passed across the waste, as if the brown moor was trying to rouse itself from its long slumber; and through the heavy, gloomy atmosphere there came a sound as of a soft, long-drawn-out, plaintive wail, and then again a death-like stillness, in which Elsa seemed to hear the beating of her heart.

But more fearful almost than the stillness of this desert spot was the shrieking of a great flock of