so early in my life I was at my books," and he smiled rather sadly. "I
let him in and he talked to me for an hour of matters strange and
dreamlike, and enviable to me. I have never forgotten that hour, nor to
tell the truth have I ever ceased to envy the man who talked to me
during it, though many years since he suffered a dreadful doom and
vanished from among his fellows. I shall be glad, therefore, to hear
your story if you have a mind to tell it me. The young man who came
upon that other night was Count Philip Christopher von Königsmarck."

Wogan started at the mention of this name. It seemed strange that that
fitful and brilliant man, whose brief, passionate, guilty life and
mysterious end had made so much noise in the world, had crossed that
lawn and stood before that window at just such an hour, and maybe had
sat shivering in Wogan's very chair.

"I have no such story as Count Philip von Königsmarck no doubt had to
tell," said Wogan.

"Chevalier," said Count Otto, with a nod of approval, "Königsmarck had
the like reticence, though he was not always so discreet, I fear. The
Princess Sophia Dorothea was at that time on a visit to the Duke of
Würtemberg at the palace in Stuttgart, but Königsmarck told me only that
he had snatched a breathing space from the wars in the Low Countries and
was bound thither again. Rumour told me afterwards of his fatal
attachment. He sat where you sit, Chevalier, wounded as you are, a
fugitive from pursuit. Even the stains and disorder of his plight could
not disguise the singular beauty of the man or make one insensible to
the charm of his manner. But I forget my duties," and he rose. "It would
be as well, no doubt, if I did not wake my servants?" he suggested.