The old man shook his head sadly and answered in a subdued tone:
"I stood by when Herr Rojanow questioned him in the hall. There is no hope. The poor baron won't live until night."
CHAPTER XIII.
The little hunting lodge of Rodeck, which lay so white and silent in the snow of that first December day, had seldom been witness to so great an excitement as that occasioned by Baron Wallmoden's accident. It was about noon when the two foresters appeared with their unconscious burden in their arms. Hartmut Rojanow had seen at a glance what was to be done. He had the injured man taken at once to Prince Adelsberg's room, sent off a messenger for the nearest physician, and gave intelligent orders concerning the sick man's treatment until the doctor should arrive.
Then, when the physician told him there was no hope, he dispatched old Stadinger to Fürstenstein. Frau Regine only arrived in time to see her brother die. Wallmoden never recovered consciousness after the fearful shock of his fall; he lay upon the bed silent and motionless, breathing with difficulty, and recognizing no one, and an hour later all was over.
Toward evening Herr von Schönau and Willibald returned to Fürstenstein. Before starting for Rodeck a telegram had been dispatched to the embassy telling of the accident, and now the head forester sent another announcing its fatal termination.
Fran von Eschenhagen remained at Rodeck with her brother's widow. The corpse would be taken to the city early in the morning and until then the two women would remain with it. Adelheid, who had faced the danger so bravely, and had done her duty, though there was little to do at her husband's death bed, now when all was over, seemed to lose her strength. She was bewildered by the sudden and terrible occurrence.
Hartmut Rojanow stood at his window in the second story, and glanced across the desolate, bare forest, which, with its snowy mantle, had a ghostly, uncanny look.
The night came down quickly, and the stars shed a faint light over the tall, leafless branches. Yesterday the first snow storm of the season had come, and everything as far as eye could reach was enveloped in an icy mantle. The great level park before the castle was knee deep with snow, and the broad branches of the fir trees bent to the earth with their heavy white burden. The stars came out one by one and dotted the heavens with their clear, quiet light, while far to the north a faint rosy glow tinted the distant horizon like a first morning greeting in the eastern sky. But it was night, a cold, icy winter night, upon which no gleam of a new day could have fallen.