"It is about the Count."
"Ah!"
"Yes, monsieur; you probably know that I sat up with him last night."
"I know you did. Pray sit down!"
She seated herself in a chair opposite me, a big, leather-covered armchair, and I remarked with interest the energetic character of the face which had seemed to me only grotesque on the evening of my arrival at the Castle.
"Monsieur," she went on after a brief pause, fixing her dark eyes on me, "I must tell you first of all that I am not a timid woman. I have seen many things in my life,—things so terrible that nothing astonishes me any more. When any one has passed through Rossbach, Leuthen, and Zorndorf, he has left fear behind him on the road."
"You speak truly, madame!"
"I don't tell you this from a desire to boast, but only to convince you that I don't lose my wits at nothing, and that you may depend upon what I say when I tell you I have seen something."
"What the deuce can she have to tell me?" I said to myself.
"Well!" she continued; "last night, between nine and ten, just as I was starting up to bed, Offenloch came in and said to me: