The old General was agitated.  We did not speak to him.  My father walked to some little distance, and began reading the inscriptions on the tombstones; and thus occupied, he strolled into the door of a side chapel to prosecute his researches.  The General leaned against the wall, dried his eyes, and sighed heavily.  I was relieved on hearing the voices of Carmilla and Madame, who were at that moment approaching.  The voices died away.

In this solitude, having just listened to so strange a story, connected, as it was, with the great and titled dead, whose monuments were moldering among the dust and ivy round us, and every incident of which bore so awfully upon my own mysterious case—­in this haunted spot, darkened by the towering foliage that rose on every side, dense and high above its noiseless walls—­a horror began to steal over me, and my heart sank as I thought that my friends were, after all, not about to enter and disturb this triste and ominous scene.

The old General’s eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his hand upon the basement of a shattered monument.

Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted by one of those demoniacal grotesques in which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old Gothic carving delights, I saw very gladly the beautiful face and figure of Carmilla enter the shadowy chapel.

I was just about to rise and speak, and nodded smiling, in answer to her peculiarly engaging smile; when with a cry, the old man by my side caught up the woodman’s hatchet, and started forward.  On seeing him a brutalized change came over her features.  It was an instantaneous and horrible transformation, as she made a crouching step backwards.  Before I could utter a scream, he struck at her with all his force, but she dived under his blow, and unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by the wrist.  He struggled for a moment to release his arm, but his hand opened, the axe fell to the ground, and the girl was gone.

He staggered against the wall.  His grey hair stood upon his head, and a moisture shone over his face, as if he were at the point of death.

The frightful scene had passed in a moment.  The first thing I recollect after, is Madame standing before me, and impatiently repeating again and again, the question, “Where is Mademoiselle Carmilla?”

I answered at length, “I don’t know—­I can’t tell—­she went there,” and I pointed to the door through which Madame had just entered; “only a minute or two since.”

“But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle Carmilla entered; and she did not return.”

She then began to call “Carmilla,” through every door and passage and from the windows, but no answer came.

“She called herself Carmilla?” asked the General, still agitated.

“Carmilla, yes,” I answered.

“Aye,” he said; “that is Millarca.  That is the same person who long ago was called Mircalla, Countess Karnstein.  Depart from this accursed ground, my poor child, as quickly as you can.  Drive to the clergyman’s house, and stay there till we come.  Begone!  May you never behold Carmilla more; you will not find her here.”