"But you are really worse than I thought, dear sir," she said. "Your hand is burning hot, and--pardon an old lady--your forehead also is hot. Let me send for my physician!"
"I beg you will not do it," said Oswald, making a violent effort. "I must tell you: I have not slept a moment all last night, probably from over-fatigue during my long journey."
"Then you ought at least to lie down for a few hours," begged the old lady. "I know very well young people cannot do without sleep like us old people."
"I mean to do it," replied Oswald, as Mrs. Black rose. "You'll see a few hours' sleep will set it all right again."
"God grant it!" said the old lady, cordially pressing Oswald's hand once more. "Pray, pray, no ceremony! I will inquire again a few hours hence."
What had he been told just now? At the very first words of the old lady he had no longer doubted that this was the continuation of the story which mother Claus had told him in Grenwitz that evening when he and Timm had sought shelter in her hut. All the details agreed. Just as the old lady had described the strange gentleman, the portrait of Baron Harald looked now, put of its broad gold frame; and had not the beautiful poor girl, whom he had so sadly ill-treated, borne the name of Marie d'Estein, like the adopted daughter of Monsieur d'Estein?
But that was not the reason why his blood froze in his veins and his limbs shook as in violent fever. It was another terrible fear, which rose with demoniac power from the lowest depths of his soul. Was it the work of fever spirits--was it incipient insanity--which changed in his inflamed imagination Monsieur d'Estein, the eccentric teacher of languages, into his father, the strange old man? and the beautiful daughter of the French colonel into the lovely young woman with the sweet eyes, around whose knees he once used to play during bright summer mornings in the cosy garden behind the town wall, while the white butterflies were fluttering about the blue larkspur?
And mad thoughts chased each other once more in wild haste. Old, long forgotten thoughts awoke and answered clearly from long ago; strange doubts, that had troubled him as a boy and as a youth, came again, and said: There is the solution! So much that he had never been able to explain in his life became of a sudden quite clear to him. It had not been pure fancy, then, which made Mother Claus see in his face continually the features of Baron Oscar, "who fell with Wodan;" nor mere humor, when Timm declared, "You have the very face of the Grenwitz barons!"
Oswald darted up and went to the mirror. A deadly pale face with strange, wild eyes stared at him there. "See there! The evil spirit not laid yet! It has not had victims enough yet! Must there be many more sacrifices? Can a vampire die of his own venomous glance? A bullet? Eh! a bullet, nicely driven in at the temples--that might make an end to the gruesome story! But what will bring death really--a death from which the soul can never awake again?"
Oswald uttered a fierce cry. A hand seized his arm, and over the shoulder of his image in the mirror he saw a distorted face grinning at him.