I cannot tell you exactly what she felt when she saw Nino from her lofty window, but she was certainly glad with her whole heart.  If she had not known of his coming from my visit the previous evening, she would perhaps have given way to some passionate outburst of happiness; but as it was, the feeling of anticipation, the sweet, false dawn of freedom, together with the fact that she was prepared, took from this first pleasure all that was overwhelming.  She only felt that he had come, and that she would soon be saved from Benoni; she could not tell how, but she knew it, and smiled to herself for the first time in months, as she held a bit of jewelry to her slender throat before the glass, wondering whether she had not grown too thin and pale to please her lover, who had been courted by the beauties of the world since he had left her.

She was ill, perhaps, and tired.  That was why she looked pale; but she knew that the first day of freedom would make her as beautiful as ever.  She spent the morning hours in her rooms; but when she heard the gates close she fancied herself alone in the great house, and went down into the sunny courtyard to breathe the air, and to give certain instructions to her faithful man.  She sent him to my house to speak with me; and that was all the message he had for the present.  However, he knew well enough what he was to do.  There was a strong smell of banknotes in the air, and the man kept his nose up.

Having despatched this important business, Hedwig set herself to walk up and down the paved quadrangle on the sunny side.  There was a stone bench in a warm corner that looked inviting.  She entered the house and brought out a book, with which she established herself to read.  She had often longed to sit there in the afternoon and watch the sun creeping across the flags, pursued by the shadow, till each small bit of moss and blade of grass had received its daily portion of warmth.  For though the place had been cleared and weeded, the tiny green things still grew in the chinks of the pavement.  In the middle of the court was a well with a cover and yoke of old-fashioned twisted iron and a pulley to draw the water.  The air was bright and fresh outside the castle, but the reverberating rays of the sun made the quiet courtyard warm and still.

Sick with her daily torture of mind the fair, pale girl rested her, at last, and dreaming of liberty drew strength from the soft stillness.  The book fell on her lap, her head leaned back against the rough stones of the wall, and gradually, as she watched from beneath her half-closed lids the play of the stealing sunlight, she fell into a sweet sleep.

She was soon disturbed by that indescribable ununeasiness that creeps through our dreams when we are asleep in the presence of danger.  A weird horror possesses us, and makes the objects in the dream appear unnatural.  Gradually the terror grows on us and thrills us, and we wake, with bristling hair and staring eyes, to the hideous consciousness of unexpected peril.