The groom appeared to confirm his master's assertion.
"Follow the trail as straight as you can, and hand over two of the hounds to me while I make a circuit of the wood yonder."
With that he took over two of the dogs, and
sending his escort on in front, turned aside, slowly wading through the snow. But the moment his man was out of sight, he suddenly changed his direction, and strode rapidly towards the pine grove.
On reaching the trench which surrounded it, he dismounted, tied his horse to a bush and the dogs to his saddle bow and waded across the narrow ditch. By the light of the snow it was easy to find his goal.
A large white marble monument arose by the side of a green tree, on the top of it was the sad emblem of death, an angel with an inverted torch.
The horseman stood alone before the monument—this visitor was Rudolf.
Thus both of them had come at the same time, and it was the will of Fate that they should meet there before the tomb.
Rudolf hastened confidently towards the white colonnaded monument and stood rooted to the ground with amazement on perceiving the figure of a man, apparently in a state of collapse, half sitting, half kneeling on the pedestal. But the man was equally amazed to see him there.
Neither recognized the other.