upon the open pathway, she saw Dietrich coming across the field in hot
haste. He was breathless when he reached her.

"I don't like to have you come alone through the wood, Veronica," he said,
"I thought I should be in time, but I could not get rid of those two
fellows. I tried to get away two or three times, but they always had
something more to say, and kept me."

"Where were you, Dietrich?"

"They had some business with me; that is, Jost had something to tell me,
and Blasi was there too. Jost did not care to speak of it on the open
street, and so we went into the Rehbock; and that is what made me so late.
Why, what's the matter, Veronica? Are you ill?"

She was as pale as a ghost.

"What! You've been to the Rehbock, Dietrich!" she exclaimed in evident
distress. "Oh, don't go there! Please don't go to that place again!"

"Oh, now we are to have the old story over again, are we?" said the young
man, laughing, "you have taken some foolish whim into your head; you
really don't know why yourself. What's your prejudice against that house
in particular?"

"I do know why; and it is no whim," said Veronica, earnestly. "I will tell
you all about it. That house has been a terror to me ever since I can
remember anything. We were both so young that you probably do not
recollect it at all. We both went with mother to the doctor's, but you
didn't go into the house, I remember now. Mother told the doctor that my