heard, of all that he had seen or read, and
tell strange tales of adventure with a charm
which would have won the heart of a less
willing listener. The sweet German
nature, looking out of those calm blue eyes,
grew daily closer to his; her happiness
expanded daily, sending forth stronger shoots
and tendrils, which clasped themselves
around whatsoever belonged unto her
"mann"—her Albrecht. His word would
have been her law under any circumstances;
it became a law of devotion, and
not of discipline alone.

They spent three weeks on the Danube:
they visited a large estate of the count's,
near Pesth. Then, towards the end of the
second month after their marriage, they
moved to the old mansion of the Rabensbergs
at Prague; worm-eaten, gloomy,
uninhabited for years, with rust on its hinges,
and grass-grown courts, and the sorrow of
many generations hanging over it like a
pall. The count was more pre-occupied,
more strange in his demeanour than usual
that night. After supper, when the
servants had left the room, he said suddenly:

"We shall only be here two nights,
Magda... To-morrow I must leave
thee alone for the day. I go to Schloss
Rabensberg, which is but a few hours'
journey.... to prepare it for thy reception,
my darling .... and then—"

He abruptly broke off: pressed her to
his bosom, and struggled to cast aside the
care which had weighed upon his spirits
all the evening. The young wife was not
very keen sighted; she soon forgot the
shadow, in the sunshine, artificial though
it was; and slept that night the calm sleep
of a child, unconscious that her husband
never closed his eyes, but lay and watched
with a look of intense anxiety, the sweet
untroubled face beside him.

He was off by daybreak; and Magda
wandered about the house feeling a little
lonely, and dreaming old-world dreams in
the great desolate rooms, half the day. She
drew a spinning-wheel from a dusty corner
in one of the rooms, and set it near a
window; bravely resolving to employ
herself. It proved a failure; the thread broke
every minute, and she pushed the wheel
aside, at last, in despair. She could not sit
down to her knitting to-day; she wanted
something to employ her thoughts, and not
her fingers only. She turned to the
pictures; she examined them all in detail; they
were mostly portraits, and among them was
one which struck her young imagination
forcibly; she came back to it again and
again—why she could not tell. There were
splendid-looking warriors, but it was not
one of these; gay courtiers, and fair ladies
in farthingale and ruff, but none of them
possessed for her the attraction of a portrait
representing a plain woman in the hideous
dress in fashion fifty years since. The face
was wholly unlike Albrecht' s, unlike any
one Magda remembered; unless indeed—
but the fancy was absurd! Her own eyes,
as the glass told her, were soft, light blue;
these were grey, and anything but soft;
passionate intensity was their characteristic,
and the secret of their rivetting the
spectator. Those eyes would not let
themselves be forgotten; the only beautiful spot
in the picture, it was natural she should
think and speculate about them; but why
should they seem to her like the broken,
confused reflection of her own eyes, given
back by the troubled waters of a steel-cold
lake? There was neither name nor date
affixed to the portrait, and no servant in
the house knew who the original was. She
returned to the room twice to look at it;
and the memory of it haunted her long after
the shades of twilight had gathered round;
until the clatter of a horse's hoofs in the
court-yard roused her to Albrecht's return.

He came in looking excited, but worn
and anxious, and after embracing her
tenderly, he almost immediately began thus:

"We leave this to-morrow morning, my
dearest Magda. Art thou prepared to
start?"

"Surely. .... We go to Schloss
Rabensberg?.... I shall be glad to get out
of this gloomy house, Albrecht."

"Schloss Rabensberg is still gloomier,
Magda. It is surrounded by a moat, and
stands in the midst of a wild forest. The
walls are thick and the windows small...
It is not a cheerful residence, my poor
child."

"Never mind. I shall get accustomed
to it, Albrecht. It is the country and we
can walk about the woods all day long in
the sweet summer time; and at night I
shall not mind the gloom, with thee."

"Ah! .... that is it." .... He
paused; and then continued with an effort,
"Magda, I have to put thy love to a strange
test... Art thou ready to undergo a
separation from me, for awhile for my
sake?"

"What dost thou mean, Albrecht?"

"That for reasons I cannot explain, I
earnestly wish thee to go to Schloss Rabensberg
but alone. Thy stay there ....
unless, indeed, I am able to join thee, which