Franz. 'I recognize you now by your voice, though it has, of course, become much deeper than when I heard it last. So it was you who rode past me down yonder, near the lake, upon that fiery horse? I was standing wrapt up in my own thoughts, when suddenly a horseman sprang forward from among the trees, and, passing me in wild haste, vanished speedily from my sight. By the glimpse I had of him, I thought his face was not altogether unknown to me, but I should as soon have expected to have seen the Wild Huntsman, or a ghost, as you, Herr Count.'

'Am I so much changed?' asked the count. 'I can now quite recognize you again, Franz, although you certainly look a little older. And Giuliana's eyes shine like a pair of well-remembered stars from my childhood's heaven. I believe I am as tall as my father was, and I am thought very like him.'

'I can't see any very strong resemblance,' said Franz, turning away from him. 'But has the count had no refreshment, Giuliana? Move that light a little farther off, it hurts my eyes; sit down, Herr Count, and let us be merry. I have still a flask of old Syracuse--we shall empty that together to the health of your mother, the noble countess.'

'I wear this mourning for her,' said Otto, suppressing his emotion. 'Three months ago, at Toplitz, she was released from her long-continued sufferings.'

'Dead!' exclaimed Franz, and covered his face with his hands. 'You come, perhaps, Herr Count, as the envoy of the dead, and bring me a word of farewell; or, more probably, she has latterly forgotten Jæger Franz. She has had no communication with me for ten long years.'

'My dying mother sent this ring to your daughter, said Otto, handing to Giuliana a gold ring, with a little diamond cross on it. On the inside of the ring was engraved, 'Keep watch over your soul, and pray for the dead.'

'I have a few words to say to you, Franz, when we are alone.'

'Go, my daughter, and fetch us some wine,' said Franz, bending the while a scrutinizing look upon Otto, yet trying to appear quite at his ease, though a degree of nervousness and anxiety in his countenance and demeanour proved that he was not so.

Giuliana left the room; and after a moment's silence, which seemed embarrassing to them both, Otto took Italian Franz's hand, and said:

'You must solve an enigma for me, which embitters my remembrance of my mother's last hours. She suffered exceedingly, but I think not so much from bodily as from mental pain. In the last interview I had with her, when I hoped she would have opened her mind to me, and have cast off the burden of some secret which seemed to oppress her heart, it was almost too late; she could scarcely speak, but she pronounced your name, and said, in a trembling voice, "Go to him, and ask him if that be true about which I have never ventured to ask him, and which, for full fifteen years past, like a frightful suspicion, has haunted my soul--ask him, for the sake of my eternal salvation, if--"'

'If what?' demanded Franz, springing up from his seat.

'I could not understand another word; she was dying, and her speech was very imperfect. Suddenly a convulsive fit came on, and in a moment she was gone. It is now, alas! too late to obtain, for her peace, an answer to the mysterious question; but for the sake of my own peace, I would claim it. Tell me, Franz, what is it you know which made my mother so miserable on her death-bed?'

'And did she really and truly say nothing more?' asked Franz, with a relieved look.

'Not another word. But you must tell me the rest.'

'Thank your God that you have escaped hearing more, Herr Count! I will carry to my grave what I know; it would be good neither for you nor for myself, were I to disclose it.'

'You shall, though,' cried the count, grasping his short sword. 'I will know it, or--'

'Act as you please, Herr Count,' said Franz, coldly, and without appearing to be in the least intimidated by the threat. 'You would be doing me a service by putting an end to a life which I care not to hold; but no power on earth shall wring from me one word I do not choose to utter.'

The coolness of Franz checked the rising anger of the young man.

'Forgive my impetuosity, Franz,' he said, in a lower tone; 'your firmness and your calm demeanour put me to shame; I have no right to insist on any explanation from you. But I shall remain for a little while in this neighbourhood; we shall probably meet often, and when you are convinced of the great importance it is to me to discover what you now think advisable to conceal, perhaps you will change your determination.'

'I doubt that,' replied Franz. 'If you were a holy priest, Herr Count, and belonged to the true church, in which alone salvation can be found, but which is proscribed hereabouts, it would be another thing.'

'It is, then, a matter of conscience, Franz, about which my mother--'

'Think what you will of me, Herr Count, but do not implicate your mother! Whatever she may have fancied, and whatever account I may have to render to Him who will judge every soul, and the actions of every being, at the great day of doom--for the sake of your own peace of mind seek not to dive into the mystery of my gloomy fate; enough that it casts a dark shadow over my life. For Giuliana's sake, let me also entreat of you to keep this conversation secret from her, and if you do not wish to destroy the childish simplicity and peace of that unfortunate girl, leave us as soon as you possibly can, that she may not witness such scenes between you and myself.'

'I have a plan in regard to Giuliana, Franz, which I shall tell you to-morrow. To-night I do not feel in spirits to enter on the subject. Farewell!'

So saying, the young count left him, and when Giuliana entered shortly after with the wine, she found her father alone, and asked why Count Otto had gone away in such a hurry, and without even bidding her farewell.

'He had business to attend to, my child,' replied her father; 'but he intends to remain at Soröe to-night, and he will pay us another visit before he goes away.'

'What! is he going away so soon?' sighed Giuliana. 'I thought he meant to have stayed some time among us.'

'Have you, then, much pleasure in the thought of seeing him, my daughter?' asked Franz.

'Oh yes, yes! he is my dear old playfellow, and it seems to me as if we had always known each other. If he had not been so tall, and also a count, a nobleman of high rank, I would actually have embraced him when he came in so suddenly, and told me he was little Otto.'

'Never forget, my child, to behave to him with the respectful distance which becomes the difference between his situation and ours,' said Franz gravely, and fell into a gloomy mood.

In the hope of enlivening him, Giuliana took up the little Italian mandolin which her father had brought from her native land, and sang, in the language of that foreign country, Franz's favourite song, which ran as follows:--