"The end is coming!" she murmured, clasping her faithful hands. "As sure as my poor master is alive, the end is coming."
Not to her master or his wife, but to Karl Andinnian, did she impart all this. It happened that Karl went over to the Maze that evening. Ann Hopley followed him out when he departed, and told him of it amidst the trees.
It startled him in a more painful degree even than it had startled her: for, oh, what were her interests in the matter as compared with his?
"Inside the grounds!--watching the house at night!" he repeated with a gasp.
"Indeed, indeed he was, sir!"
"But who is it?"
"I don't know," said Ann; "I hoped it was only some thief who had come after the fruit: I thought he might have got over from the fields by means of a high ladder. That would have been nothing. But if the man who came to the gate to-day is the same man, it must mean mischief."
"You have not told my brother?"
"How could I dare to tell him, sir? He might watch for the man; and, if he came another night, shoot him. That would make things worse."
"With a vengeance," thought Karl. What was there to do? What could he do? Karl Andinnian went out, the question beating itself into his brain. Why, there seemed nothing for it but to wait and watch. He took off his hat and raised his bare head to the summer sky, in which some stars were twinkling, wishing he was there, in that blessed heaven above where no pain can come. What with one tribulation and another, earth was growing for him a hard resting-place.