When Marie rose from her knees, the painful smile had vanished from Henry’s lips; his face was calm and peaceful; the distortion had disappeared from his countenance.

* * * * *

After Henry’s death, life for the occupants of the Nameless Castle became still more uncomfortable.  Ludwig Vavel had lost his only friend—­the only one who had shared his cares and his confidences.  He was obliged to hire a servant to assist Lisette, and, remembering what Henry had advised, took the old soldier with the wooden leg into the castle.  For the old invalid, the change from hard labor to comfortable quarters and easy work was certainly an improvement.  Instead of cutting wood all day long for a mere pittance, he had now nothing to do but brush clothes which were never dusty, polish the furniture, receive the supplies from and deliver orders to Frau Schmidt every morning, to place the newspapers on the library table, and convey the victuals from the kitchen to the dining-room.

But two weeks of this easy work and good wages, and the comforts of the castle, were all that the old soldier could endure.  Then he took off his handsome livery, and begged to be allowed to return to his former life of hardship and poverty.  Afterward he was heard to aver that not for the whole castle would he consent to live in it an entire year—­where not one word was spoken all day long; even the cook never opened her lips.  No, he could not stand it; he would rather, a hundred times over, cut wood for five groats the day.

No sooner did Baroness Katharina learn that Count Vavel was again without a man-servant than she sent to the castle Satan Laczi’s son, who was then twelve years old, and a useful lad.

Two leading ideas now filled Count Vavel’s entire soul.

One was an enthusiastic admiration for a high ideal, whose embodiment he believed he had found in the lovely person of his young charge.  All the emotions that a man of deep and profound nature lavishes on his faithful love, his only offspring, his queen, his guardian saint, Count Ludwig now bestowed on this one woman, who endured with patience, renounced with meekness, forgave and loved with her whole heart, and who, even in her banishment, adored her native land which had repulsed and cruelly persecuted her.

The second idea encompassed all the emotions of an opposing passion:  a boundless hatred for the giant who, with strides that covered kingdoms and empires, was marching over the entire eastern hemisphere, marking his every step with graves and human skeletons; an enmity toward the Titan who was using thrones as footstools, and who had made himself a god over a greater portion of Europe,