'I wear this mourning for her,' said Otto, suppressing his emotion. 'Three months ago, at Toplitz, she was released from her long-continued sufferings.'

'Dead!' exclaimed Franz, and covered his face with his hands. 'You come, perhaps, Herr Count, as the envoy of the dead, and bring me a word of farewell; or, more probably, she has latterly forgotten Jæger Franz. She has had no communication with me for ten long years.'

'My dying mother sent this ring to your daughter, said Otto, handing to Giuliana a gold ring, with a little diamond cross on it. On the inside of the ring was engraved, 'Keep watch over your soul, and pray for the dead.'

'I have a few words to say to you, Franz, when we are alone.'

'Go, my daughter, and fetch us some wine,' said Franz, bending the while a scrutinizing look upon Otto, yet trying to appear quite at his ease, though a degree of nervousness and anxiety in his countenance and demeanour proved that he was not so.

Giuliana left the room; and after a moment's silence, which seemed embarrassing to them both, Otto took Italian Franz's hand, and said:

'You must solve an enigma for me, which embitters my remembrance of my mother's last hours. She suffered exceedingly, but I think not so much from bodily as from mental pain. In the last interview I had with her, when I hoped she would have opened her mind to me, and have cast off the burden of some secret which seemed to oppress her heart, it was almost too late; she could scarcely speak, but she pronounced your name, and said, in a trembling voice, "Go to him, and ask him if that be true about which I have never ventured to ask him, and which, for full fifteen years past, like a frightful suspicion, has haunted my soul--ask him, for the sake of my eternal salvation, if--"'

'If what?' demanded Franz, springing up from his seat.

'I could not understand another word; she was dying, and her speech was very imperfect. Suddenly a convulsive fit came on, and in a moment she was gone. It is now, alas! too late to obtain, for her peace, an answer to the mysterious question; but for the sake of my own peace, I would claim it. Tell me, Franz, what is it you know which made my mother so miserable on her death-bed?'

'And did she really and truly say nothing more?' asked Franz, with a relieved look.