"That is a long story, young master, and I will tell you. I tell you, if all the drops that are now falling out there were tears, and all were wept for the sake of the poor child--I would say they were not nearly enough.
"When Harald made that terrible wager with Baron Barnewitz, they had just been absent together for two or three weeks; I know not where, but I believe they had gone to a large city, far away, and there, I think, they had seen the poor child. Soon afterwards he left again, and this time he stayed two months. At last he wrote he would come back, but not alone. His Aunt Grenwitz, he wrote, would come too, and I was to air the rooms of the late baroness and let the furniture be attended to, and prepare everything for her reception. Now I knew the baron had a great-aunt, his grandfather's sister, but she must be eighty years and more; she had never in her life been at Grenwitz, and had never troubled herself about Harald, nor he about her. I was, therefore, not a little surprised at the strange idea to undertake such a journey at her time of life, for she lived many, many miles from here; but I did as I was ordered. They arrived on the appointed day; I received them and wondered how active the old lady was, though she walked with a crutch and had silver-gray hair and eyebrows. Harald was full of respect for her; he led her on his arm through all the rooms of the castle, and showed her everything very carefully, especially the family portraits in the gallery, where her own was hanging, as a girl of eighteen.--They stopped before it and laughed immoderately, and the old lady began to cough, and Harald slapped her on the back. I did not know why they laughed so--I thought it was because the pretty girl had become such an ugly woman, for then I did not suspect anything of the disgraceful plot.
"Early the next day the baron sent for his carriage and he and the aunt drove off. 'We shall be back to-night,' he said, 'though perhaps very late. We shall bring a young lady home, a young companion for Aunt Grenwitz. She is to have the room next door, do you hear?'--'But, master,' I said, 'the baroness died in the red-room, and everything is left there exactly as it was on the day of her death.'--'Then let everything be cleared out,' he said; 'do you hear, everything, and have it put in another room. Put some furniture in it. The young lady must sleep near Aunt Grenwitz.'--'What do you say, dear Harald?' asked the aunt, who was deaf in one ear and did not hear particularly well in the other ear, so that she could never understand me, even when I spoke ever so loud. 'Nothing, nothing, dear aunt,' said the baron, 'all right, Jake!'
"It was late in the night when they returned. I had sent all the servants to bed except the new valet, which the master had brought home with him from his travels. The young lady was in the carriage. When they entered the hall and the light of the candles, which the man--his name was Baptiste--carried in his hand, fell upon the rosy face of the young lady, his features grinned most unpleasantly. But I saw Harald frown and make a sign with his eyes, and at once Baptiste was all submission and zeal again.
"'Show the ladies to their rooms, old one,' said Harald to me, and then he bowed gracefully and wished the ladies a good-night.
"'Will you give me your arm, dear Marie?' said the aunt, as I was showing the way with the light in my hand; 'my limbs are a little fatigued after the long ride to-day.'--'How shall I ever thank you for your kindness?' said the girl, with a voice so soft and sweet, that I could not help turning round and looking at her. The old woman and the girl were standing on the landing of the steps. There were three candles in the branches which I held, and the light fell bright upon the two, and I shall never forget the sight, if I were to live another eighty years. The aunt had never looked so hideously ugly to me, and in all my life I had never seen anything half as fair and sweet as the young lady. 'You know best, dear child,' said the old lady, making a good-natured grimace, which made her look still uglier, if that was possible. 'I have only one wish upon earth; it lies with you to see it fulfilled or not.' The girl did not answer, but great tears started in her eyes, and then she bent her tall, slim figure quite low and kissed the old witch's hand. 'Well, well,' she said, 'you are a good child; we shall agree, I doubt not, and my Harald, my pet, will be happy yet.--Tell them to give you your candle, dear Marie; I know the home of my ancestors well enough, although I have not seen it for more than sixty years now. You can go to bed, Claus; I do not like to trouble the servants unnecessarily.'
"And that was true. We heard her bell very rarely. She dressed herself and undressed herself; it took her several hours, it is true, but none of us was allowed to render her the slightest assistance; once, when one of the maids had come into her chamber while she was dressing, she was very angry, and ever after locked herself in. She had strange ways about her, the old lady. Thus she never was tired at night, and I have seen her wander about in her room till early dawn; but then she slept till late in the afternoon. At table she never had any appetite, but in her room she could eat and drink without end; sometimes she had two, and sometimes three bottles of wine sent up stairs. But the most remarkable thing was this: to-day she looked fifty, and tomorrow she looked eighty; at one time she was stone deaf, and at another time she could hear a mouse slip across the room; now she scarcely could drag herself along with her crutch, and then she came down the steps faster than I, although I was only sixty then, and quite active yet. I felt very uncomfortable about the old lady, and was glad when I could keep out of her way."
"And what was Miss Marie doing in the mean time?"
"She was almost always with Harald. I saw them together early in the morning, wandering among the dewy flowers in the garden, arm in arm; she with bashfully cast-down eyes, he talking eagerly to her. I saw them in the afternoon, sitting in the cool rooms which face the park; he reading aloud from a book, or more frequently his arm leaning on the back of her chair, and she looking up at him very happy, whereupon he would cast burning glances at her, and smooth from time to time her silken brown hair. I saw them in the evening, wandering once more in the garden, or slowly walking up and down in the brilliantly lighted rooms, while Aunt Grenwitz was sitting on the sofa, reading, or pretending to read. Ah! those were glorious times for the poor child, and she always looked so perfectly happy that I feared and trembled how it all was to end; and when she met me she always had a kind word for me: 'How are you, dear Mrs. Claus?' or, 'Can I help you, dear Mrs. Claus? You work too hard. I am ashamed to be so idle here.'
"One afternoon I met her in the garden. It was a hot, sunny day; she wore a white dress, and a broad-brimmed straw hat was hanging on her fair round arm. The baron was out riding, the first time for a long while, and the aunt still asleep. I had long determined to speak to the girl at the first opportunity, and to open her eyes. I gathered courage, therefore, as she was about to pass by me with a 'Good-day, Mother Claus, how are you?' and said: 'Many thanks. Miss Marie, have you a moment's time? I should like to say a few words to you.'--'What is the matter?' she said, and as she looked into my face, which was probably quite sad and sober, she cried: 'For heaven's sake, I hope nothing bad has happened?'--'No, Miss Marie,' I said, 'but that might easily come about if you do not look about you; and I should be heartily sorry for that, for you are so young and good, and you look so chaste and good, and as innocent as an angel.'--'What do you mean?' said the poor child, and turned deep red. 'Come this way, Miss Marie,' I said, and drew her into the beech avenue, where we could not be seen from the castle; 'I will tell you everything I have on my conscience. I am an old woman and you are a young girl who knows little how the world goes, and how things go here in Grenwitz!' And then I described to her the life at the castle as it had been before she came, and what a wild, sad man Harald was, and how he was as false and as cruel as a tiger. She turned to me with glowing cheeks, never once raising her long silken eyelashes to look at me with her beautiful blue eyes, and without interrupting me once; then she said, in a low voice: 'I thank you, Mrs. Claus--but what you tell me I have long known.' I was thunderstruck. 'You knew it, and yet you accompanied the old lady here? You know it, and you remain here. You know it, and you are not afraid to stay alone with the baron for hours and days? Oh, child, child! what must I think of you?'--'Think nothing that is bad of me,' she said, placing her hand on my shoulder, 'and think a little better of the baron. He will never again be as wild and as bad as he has been.'--'How do you know, Miss Marie?' 'Because he has promised me.'--'And you think he will keep his promise?'--'Oh, certainly.'--'Why?'--'Because he loves me!'--'Oh, child! child!' I cried, 'for heaven's sake, it is high time: flee, or you are surely lost. Poor child! to believe his vows! He shoots the horse that he likes no longer, and he breaks the vow that becomes a burden to him. What he has promised you is an old song; he sings it as a bird whistles his air, without thinking what he does. What he has promised you he has promised a hundred others, who perhaps were no better than he is.'--'Stop,' said Miss Marie, vehemently, 'I cannot and must not listen to you any longer.' And then she added, smiling: 'You will soon see, my good woman, how you have wronged my Harald--how you have wronged Baron Harald.'--'Your Harald?' I said, 'poor child! He'll never be your Harald. He takes whatever chance throws in his way, and as you happen to be here----' 'And if I should not happen to be here,' she said, laughing merrily; 'if I should not be here for the sake of the baroness, but the baroness for my sake, and if I should not go away again, but remain here forever?----' At that moment Harald came suddenly into the avenue in which we were walking up and down. He started when he saw me alone with the girl. 'Miss Marie,' he said, 'I believe my aunt wants you.' And when the girl had left us, he came up to me and said, hissing the words through his white teeth: 'What did you tell her, old one?'--'That you cheat her, Harald.'--'I shall twist your neck for that,' he said, and the vein swelled on his forehead. 'Better that than to break the poor thing's heart.'--'Listen, old one,' he said, 'what if I meant it in good earnest this time? What if I am really tired of this wild life, which must, after all, lead me sooner or later to the devil? What if I want to marry the girl?'--'Is she of noble birth?' said I, Harald laughed: 'She is a tailor's daughter. I shall have to put a goose and the shears in my coat of arms.'--'If she is not of noble birth,' I said, 'you will never marry her, and at best it would only be one cruel act more. The poor creature would die amid the gibes of your friends, like a hunted stag under the teeth of the dogs. Send the girl home; I beseech you, Harald, rather to-day than to-morrow. And the old baroness, too,' I added. He looked at me with open eyes, and laughed and said: 'You are less clever than I thought, old one.' Then he turned his back on me and went singing into the castle.