"Which I will answer in all candor, if it be possible."
"Do you know the name of Emily Varnier?"
"Varnier!—certainly not."
"Is there no one in this neighborhood who bears that name?"
"No one: it sounds like a foreign name."
"In the bed in which I slept I found this ring," said Edward, while he produced it; "and the apparition of my friend pronounced that name."
"Wonderful! As I tell you, I know no one so called—this is the first time I ever heard the name. But it is entirely unaccountable to me, how the ring should have come into that bed. You see, M. von Wensleben, what I told you is true. There is something very peculiar about that room: the moment you entered, I saw that the spell had been working on you also, but I did not wish to forestall or force your confidence."
"I felt the delicacy, as I do now the kindness, of your intentions. Those who are as sad as I am can alone tell the value of tenderness and sympathy."
Edward remained this day and the following at the castle, and felt quite at home with its worthy inmates. He slept twice in the haunted room. He went away, and came back often; was always welcomed cordially, and always quartered in the same apartment. But, in spite of all this, he had no clew, he had no means of lifting the vail of mystery which hung round the fate of Ferdinand Hallberg and of Emily Varnier.