“Chevalier,” said Count Otto, with a nod of approval, “Koenigsmarck had the like reticence, though he was not always so discreet, I fear.  The Princess Sophia Dorothea was at that time on a visit to the Duke of Wuertemberg at the palace in Stuttgart, but Koenigsmarck told me only that he had snatched a breathing space from the wars in the Low Countries and was bound thither again.  Rumour told me afterwards of his fatal attachment.  He sat where you sit, Chevalier, wounded as you are, a fugitive from pursuit.  Even the stains and disorder of his plight could not disguise the singular beauty of the man or make one insensible to the charm of his manner.  But I forget my duties,” and he rose.  “It would be as well, no doubt, if I did not wake my servants?” he suggested.

“Count Otto,” returned Wogan, with a smile, “they have their day’s work to-morrow.”

The old man nodded, and taking a lamp from a table by the door went out of the room.

Wogan remained alone; the dog nuzzled at his hand; but it seemed to Wogan that there was another in the room besides himself and the dog.  The sleeplessness and tension of the last few days, the fatigue of his arduous journey, the fever of his wounds, no doubt, had their effect upon him.  He felt that Koenigsmarck was at his side; his eyes could almost discern a shadowy and beautiful figure; his ears could almost hear a musical vibrating voice.  And the voice warned him,—­in some strange unaccountable way the voice warned and menaced him.

“I fought, I climbed that wall, I crossed the lawn, I took refuge here for love of a queen.  For love of a queen all my short life I lived.  For love of a queen I died most horribly; and the queen lives, though it would have gone better with her had she died as horribly.”

Wogan had once seen the lonely castle of Ahlden where that queen was imprisoned; he had once caught a glimpse of her driving in the dusk across the heath surrounded by her guards with their flashing swords.

He sat chilled with apprehensions and forebodings.  They crowded in upon his mind all the more terrible because he could not translate them into definite perils which beyond this and that corner of his life might await him.  He was the victim of illusions, he assured himself, at which to-morrow safe in Schlestadt he would laugh.  But to-night the illusions were real.  Koenigsmarck was with him.  Koenigsmarck was by some mysterious alchemy becoming incorporate with him.  The voice which spoke and warned and menaced was as much his as Koenigsmarck’s.

The old Count opened the door and heard Wogan muttering to himself as he crouched over the fire.  The Count carried a basin of water in his hand and a sponge and some linen.  He insisted upon washing Wogan’s wounds and dressing them in a simple way.

“They are not deep,” he said; “a few days’ rest and a clever surgeon will restore you.”  He went from the room again and brought back a tray, on which were the remains of a pie, a loaf of bread, and some fruit.