Walpurga promised, and merely added that Irma needn't be alarmed at the
old man who lived in the room above hers, and who at times would talk to
himself and make a loud noise. He was old and blind. The children teased
and worried him, but he wasn't bad and would harm no one. Walpurga
offered at all events to leave Gundel with Irma for the first night; but
Irma preferred to be alone.

"You'll stay with us, won't you?" said Walpurga hesitatingly. "You won't
have such bad thoughts again?"

"No, never. But don't talk now: my voice pains me, and so does yours
too. Good-night! leave me alone."

Irma sat by the window and gazed out into the dark night. Was it only a
day since she had passed through such terrors? Suddenly she sprang from
her seat with a shudder. She had seen Black Esther's head rising out of
the darkness, had again heard her dying shriek, had beheld the distorted
face and the wild black tresses.--Her hair stood on end. Her thoughts
carried her to the bottom of the lake, where she now lay dead. She
opened the window and inhaled the soft, balmy air. She sat by the open
casement for a long while, and suddenly heard some one laughing in the
room above her.

"Ha! ha! I won't do you the favor! I won't die! I won't die! Pooh, pooh!
I'll live till I'm a hundred years old, and then I'll get a new lease
of life."

It was the old pensioner. After a while he continued:--

"I'm not so stupid; I know that it's night now, and the freeholder and