"What torments me is a piece of sealing-wax on a panel in my bedroom. Reposing the other night, with my eyes turned towards it, I was seized by a singular fancy. The wax seemed to be receding through the wall, drawing me after it. Reason told me that this could not be so, that the wax was immovably fixed to the panel, and that I was in bed; yet all the same, there was the circle of wax gliding onward with never-ending motion through the realm of air, and myself floating along in its wake like a disembodied spirit. This sensation occurs every night. My mind is kept perpetually on the rack following that piece of wax through the infinity of space, ever lured onward by the hope of arriving at some goal. But that goal perpetually evades me, and therein is the torment."
"Having had the malaria myself," observed Paul, "I can testify that such queer notions do occur. What is the color of this wax?" he added, having little doubt as to what the answer would be.
"It is of a violet hue, and bears the impress of a lamb carrying a banner. I cannot go back to that chamber again," continued Barbara, "or I shall be driven mad, for the annoyance is depriving me of all sleep. I must change my room, even though my good nurse is opposed to it."
But Jacintha did not offer any opposition when Paul made known her patient's desire for a different sleeping-room; without any demur she immediately set about preparing another chamber.
That same night, when all was still in the castle, Paul, taking a revolver and a lamp, sought the room vacated by Barbara. He quickly discovered the piece of stamped wax, and saw that it corresponded precisely with the seal upon the door of the mysterious study.
Extinguishing his lamp, he sat down on a chair beside the panel, determined to watch there during the night to ascertain, if possible, whether there was any ground for Barbara's strange fancy.
It was a long and dreary vigil, and when the gray light of dawn stole in through the casement, and nothing had occurred to excite suspicion, he was fain to question the wisdom of his action.
That day Paul again carried Barbara downstairs to breathe the pure air of the sunlit terrace.
"My sleep last night was sweet and sound," she remarked. "With my new bedroom, and with this glorious air, I shall soon be well again."
She looked so radiant that Paul refrained from mentioning his nocturnal vigil. Though full of indefinable suspicion himself, he had no wish to alarm her mind; and he had laid both on Lambro and Jacintha an injunction to maintain silence respecting the locked room.