The death of her father rudely disturbed that calmness, because it awakened the passion and sorrows of the past as a single rifleshot would wake all the sleeping echoes of the hills and woods.
She sat beside the hearth, a boarhound stretched out in the warmth at her feet; the dull grey day seeming evening as its light came through the panes of the deep mullioned windows. Where she sat was the old Rittersaäl of the castle, with the armor, the shields, and the banners of a hundred forgotten battles ranged down the oaken walls. She had touched nothing. She had left it all as her grandfather had found and left it. It was gloomy, but she liked the gloom. It hurt her less than light and movement and modern luxuries, which were in such cruelly ironical mockery of her own sorrow.
As she sat thus, her long cloth fur-bordered skirts falling about her feet, and the fire light shining on her face, the dog sprang up with a loud rolling bark and rushed from the hall. She heard wheels on the rarely used and lonely drive, which passed round under the trees to the chief entrance on the other side of the house.
Who could it be? No one ever came there except some man of business. No doubt it was some consul, or some lawyer, come to speak of Prince Khristof’s funeral, and be paid for it.
But she heard a voice say in the outer hall beyond in speaking to the dog:
“What Oscar, good Oscar, have you not forgotten?”
The sound of the voice made her heart stand still.
It was eight long years since she had heard it. Was she sane? Was she in her senses? Did she only dream, awake, as she had so often dreamed in sleep all vainly?
She stood in the centre of the great dark hall and saw, as through a mist, a person enter. She saw him put back the servants with a gesture, she saw him turn and close the door and remain motionless, the dog leaping upon him; but she saw it all as in a cloud, as though many, many miles away, and she felt that it was only a vision which would fade and pass, like so many other visions of her lonely nights.
He who had entered hesitated still some moments; then he drew nearer.