I sat worrying over matters for a few minutes after they had left me, and at length grew so uneasy that I resolved to go at once to Ziegler to thresh out with him my doubts about his friends. I could not rest quiet or shake off the sense of impending trouble; and I soon had a tragic and terrible confirmation of my fears.
I was close to his house when I met Hagar rushing along the street distraught with terror. She was bareheaded, her eyes wide and fright-stricken, and she was so absorbed by her agitation, that she did not see me and did not even hear me when I first called to her.
I turned and caught her up.
"What has happened?" I asked, seizing her arm.
She tried at first to break away from me with a cry of fear, as if not recognizing me.
"I am Mr. Bastable, your father's friend. Tell me what is the matter."
She looked at me with a dazed expression, trembling violently the while, and then, with a great effort as if her emotion were choking her, she told me.
"I was coming to you. Oh, Herr Bastable, my father is dead. He has been murdered. Oh God! Oh God!"
I caught my breath with the shock of the tidings, and in an instant all my suspicions of the afternoon recurred to me with startling force.
CHAPTER XIII