"From that dreary day the north wind has howled across the wilds, and the
owl has hooted in the dark, and travellers by night know not that it is
the blood of the she-wolf weeping for the day of vengeance that will
come, whose blood will be renewed from generation to generation--so says
Hertzog--until the day when the first wife of Hugh, Hedwige the Fair,
shall reappear at Nideck under the form of an angel to comfort and to
forgive!"

Then Sperver, rising from his seat, took a lamp and demanded of Knapwurst
the keys of the library, and beckoned to me to follow him.

We rapidly traversed the long dark gallery, then the armoury, and soon
the archive-chamber appeared at the end of the great corridor.

All noises had died away in the distance. The place seemed quite
deserted.

Once or twice I turned round, and could then see with a creeping feeling
of dread our two long fantastic shadows in ghostly fashion writhing in
strange distortions upon the high tapestry.

Sperver quickly opened the old oak door, and with torch uplifted, his
hair all bristling in disorder, and excited features, walked in the
first. Standing before the portrait of Hedwige, whose likeness to the
young countess had struck me at our first visit to the library, he
addressed me in these solemn words:--

"Here is she who was to return to comfort and pity me! She has returned!
At this moment she is downstairs with the old count. Look well, Fritz; do
you recognise her? Is it not Odile?"