"He is come," he said in a faint, hollow voice.
"Who?" asked the brethren who knelt round him in prayer.
At this instant there was a violent knocking at the door; the old man raised himself with a wonderful exertion of strength.
"Open quickly," he said. The astonished brethren obeyed him, and in walked the rider clanking and clattering, straight up to the dying man; it was in vain that the brethren signed to him to be silent and not to disturb the dying man's rest.
"You are old enough--maybe you are he!" cried the Count roughly, and he threw himself on a stool by the old man's couch. "You must not die--you must speak with me."
The old man bowed his trembling head. "It is well, it is well," he muttered feebly, "I have thought of him a great deal--and it was a sin. We meant it well--but we all must err."
"Do you know me?" asked the knight in astonishment.
"Aye, aye--you will find him again--I know, I know." The Count began to be frightened at the old man.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"She has appeared to me twice--again this very night and announced to me that you would come to fetch him."