He, too, had gone to the window, and both men stood looking out silently into the storm and night, illuminated by a gray light from the moon, which behind its veil of clouds shone brightly enough to reveal objects at some distance. Suddenly the dim figure of a man appeared, seeming to come directly from the village, and making his way with sturdy steps in the teeth of the wind towards the parsonage. Michael's keen eye first detected him; he pointed him out to the priest, who shook his head, surprised. "In such weather! Some one must be desperately ill and requiring the sacrament, but I know of no one in the village who is ailing. The man is certainly coming here. I must go and let him in."
He went to open the door himself, and immediately afterwards Wolfram's voice was heard. "It is I, your reverence. I come like a ghost in the night, but it can't be helped. If you had been asleep I should have had to knock you up."
"What is the matter? What brings you here?" Valentin asked, anxiously, as he conducted his visitor into the room.
"No good, your reverence. First let me get my breath. That cursed wind,--it nearly knocked me down! I come about the young Countess----"
"Countess Steinrück? Where is she?" Michael hastily interrupted him.
"Heaven only knows! She has not returned to the parsonage?"
"Good God, no!" exclaimed Valentin. "The Countess set out for the castle."
"Yes, but she had to turn back. That confounded horse shied at a mountain brook! I should like to wring the brute's neck! And the coachman, instead of holding on to the reins, was tossed off the box, and there he lies with a hole an inch deep in his head. The servant got him back with difficulty to the inn, and the young Countess was lost on the way back. Not a soul knows where she is,--and in such a night, when all the fiends are abroad!"
He paused to take breath. Michael had grown very pale. Confused and vague as was the man's tale, he saw that his forebodings were justified.
"Was the Countess uninjured. Where did the accident happen? At what time? Answer! answer!"