"The White Lady! the White Lady!" they gasped.
"Where is she? Who has seen her?" inquired a form emerging from the rear of the room and approaching them; and now, as the lamplight fell upon this form, the soldiers recognized it very well—it was the Stadtholder in the Mark himself who stood before them, and behind him they saw his Chamberlain von Lehndorf and the police-master Brandt.
"Which of you has seen the White Lady?" asked Count Schwarzenberg once more.
"I, gracious sir," stammered one of the three with difficulty. "I was stationed before the Electoral Prince's rooms, and I saw the White Lady enter through the little door between the two presses."
"And whither went she?"
"That I did not see, your excellency, for—"
"For you ran away directly," concluded Count Schwarzenberg for him. "And you two others! You stood in the great corridor; did you see the apparition, too?"
"No, your excellency, we did not see her. She did not come through the great corridor."
"You did not see her. Why did you run away then?"
"Your excellency, we ran away because—because—we do not know ourselves."