"Count Otto," returned Wogan, with a smile, "they have their day's work
to-morrow."

The old man nodded, and taking a lamp from a table by the door went out
of the room.

Wogan remained alone; the dog nuzzled at his hand; but it seemed to
Wogan that there was another in the room besides himself and the dog.
The sleeplessness and tension of the last few days, the fatigue of his
arduous journey, the fever of his wounds, no doubt, had their effect
upon him. He felt that Königsmarck was at his side; his eyes could
almost discern a shadowy and beautiful figure; his ears could almost
hear a musical vibrating voice. And the voice warned him,--in some
strange unaccountable way the voice warned and menaced him.

"I fought, I climbed that wall, I crossed the lawn, I took refuge here
for love of a queen. For love of a queen all my short life I lived. For
love of a queen I died most horribly; and the queen lives, though it
would have gone better with her had she died as horribly."

Wogan had once seen the lonely castle of Ahlden where that queen was
imprisoned; he had once caught a glimpse of her driving in the dusk
across the heath surrounded by her guards with their flashing swords.

He sat chilled with apprehensions and forebodings. They crowded in upon
his mind all the more terrible because he could not translate them into
definite perils which beyond this and that corner of his life might
await him. He was the victim of illusions, he assured himself, at which
to-morrow safe in Schlestadt he would laugh. But to-night the illusions
were real. Königsmarck was with him. Königsmarck was by some mysterious