"Yes, sir; you know that I sat up with him last night."

"I know. Pray sit down."

She sat before me in a great arm-chair, and I could not help noticing the
energetic character of her head, which on the evening of my arrival at
the castle had only seemed to me grotesque.

"Doctor," she resumed after a short pause and with her dark eyes upon me,
"you know I am not timid or easily frightened. I have seen so many
dreadful things in the course of my life that I am astonished at nothing
now. When you have seen Marengo, Austerlitz, and Moscow, there is nothing
left that can put you out."

"I am sure of that, ma'am."

"I don't want to boast; that is not my reason for telling you this; but
it is to show you that I am not an escaped lunatic, and that you may
believe me when I tell you what I say I have seen."

This was becoming interesting.

"Well," the good woman resumed, "last night, between nine and ten, just
as I was going to bed, Offenloch came in and said to me, 'Marie, you will
have to sit up with the count to-night.' At first I felt surprised.
'What! is not mademoiselle going to sit up?' 'No, mademoiselle is poorly,
and you will have to take her place.' Poor girl, she is ill; I knew that
would be the end of it, I told her so a hundred times; but it is always
so. Young people won't believe those who are older; and then, it is her
Father. So I took my knitting, said good night to Tobias, and went into