How terribly now came back to memory some of the strange things Ernestine had said to him, and more than all, those dying words of the French captain in the Chateau de Colombey, which sounded like something between a prophecy and a curse!
'Compose yourself, Carl,' said Heinrich, full of pity.
'My letter to her—written after she was dead,' said Charles, in a voice like a whisper—'she—she——'
'I placed it in her coffin ere she was brought here from the Schloss,' said Heinrich, who was now weeping freely; 'it is there now—and heavens, father! she has round her neck the cross of which Carl spoke.'
There are many things but imperfectly known in 'our philosophy,' and certainly this seemed one of them.
'She died talking of you—not raving—the poor angel,' said the old Count, as he bent fondly over the coffined girl, 'but smiling sweetly, and saying earnestly, again and, again, that she would meet you at Burtscheid.'
* * * * *
The gloomy half-lighted chamber in which this scene took place, and where the dead girl lay, looking so sweetly placid in her coffin, was one of those, where, in conformity with the police regulations of Germany in general, the bodies of persons deceased are placed within twelve hours after death—there to await interment.
In many places, more particularly at Frankfort, to guard against the chances of burial in cases of suspended animation, the fingers of the dead are placed in the loops of a bell-rope, attached to an alarm clock, which is fixed in the apartment of the attendant appointed to be on the watch.
The least pulsation in the body would give the alarm, when medical aid would instantly be called in.