"Shall we not make a call upon the invalid?" asked the lady, rising.
Johannes nodded, and followed her.
The door of the sick-room was barely open, when a pitiable scream rang out from the corner. The poor girl sat on the floor, huddled up in her nightgown, her long black hair disheveled, and hanging down over face and back. Her beautiful dark eyes were widely distended, and her features wore an expression of mortal anguish.
"Oh, God!—It is coming!" she shrieked, trembling. "Now it will happen! Oh, God! It surely will! I know it will! There it comes! Did I not say so? Now it comes!—Oh! Oh! Oh!"
The nurse hushed and commanded, but the poor, tormented creature trembled and wept, and seemed so desperately afraid, that Johannes, greatly moved, begged leave to go away again. It seemed as if she were afraid of him.
"No, my boy!" said the countess. "It is not on account of you. She does that way whoever comes in. She is afraid of everybody and everything she sees or hears."
That whole day, and a good deal of the night, Johannes mused over this one query: "Why—why is that poor girl so afraid?"