"She--who?" asked the Count with increasing emotion.
"She, the Countess--the angel of Ramüss."
"Do not make him talk," said one of the brethren, coming up to the Count. "What good can the wanderings of a dying man do you?"
"Silence!" thundered the Count so loud that the sick man started, "Let him speak or I will make you all dumb for the rest of your days."
The brethren stood helpless and consulting each other in whispers.
"Did you know the Lady of Reichenberg?" asked the Count, bending over Florentinus.
"Did I know her--Why she lay here, where I am lying--she and the baby-boy."
"The boy?" repeated the knight, and his heart laboured sorely; but he controlled himself to listen to the sick man, whose breathing grew weaker and weaker, that he might hear the words he might speak before it had altogether ceased. "The boy--where have you put him?"
"Up there--at Marienberg--they kept him--but the mother has given me no peace--three times has she come to me and said, 'Give him his son again'--"
The last words grew fainter--the Count felt as if his head would burst with its throbbing. He bowed his ear over the dying lips, they still moved mechanically--