"If you will allow me--if you feel certain that I am not intruding--I
will accept your kind offer with joy. I never care much for a ball,
at any time, and to-day in particular"--. He stopped short, and then
added, "In such bad weather as this, the small amusement--"
"Would be dearly bought." interposed the Baron. "Come, I am delighted;
you will remain with us."
He shook Edward warmly by the hand.
"You know you are with old friends."
"And, beside," said the doctor, with disinterested solicitude, "it
would be imprudent, for M. de Wensleben does not look very well. Had
you a good night, sir?"
"Very good," replied Edward.
"Without much dreaming?" continued the other, pertinaciously.
"Dreaming! oh, nothing wonderful," answered the officer.
"Hem!" said the doctor, shaking his head, portentiously. "No one
yet--"
"Were I to relate my dream," replied Edward, "you would understand it
no more than I did. Confused images--"
The Baroness, who saw the youth's unwillingness to enlarge upon the
subject, here observed--
"That some of the visions had been of no great importance--those which
she had heard related, at least."
The chaplain led the conversation from dreams, themselves, to their
origin, on which subject he and the doctor could not agree; and Edward
and his visions were left in peace at last. But when every one had
departed, each to his daily occupation, Edward followed the Baron into
his library.
"I answered in that manner," he said, "to get rid of the doctor
and his questioning. To you I will confess the truth. Your room has
exercised its mysterious influence over me."
"Indeed!" said the baron, eagerly.
"I have seen and spoken with my Ferdinand, for the first time since
his death. I will trust to your kindness--your sympathy--not to
require of me a description of this exciting vision. But I have a
question to put to you."
"Which I will answer in all candor, if it be possible."
"Do you know the name of Emily Varnier?"
"Varnier!--certainly not."
"Is there no one in this neighborhood who bears that name?"
"No one: it sounds like a foreign name."
"In the bed in which I slept I found this ring," said Edward, while he
produced it; "and the apparition of my friend pronounced that name."
"Wonderful! As I tell you, I know no one so called--this is the
first time I ever heard the name. But it is entirely unaccountable
to me, how the ring should have come into that bed. You see, M. von
Wensleben, what I told you is true. There is something very peculiar
about that room: the moment you entered, I saw that the spell had been
working on you also, but I did not wish to forestall or force your
confidence."
"I felt the delicacy, as I do now the kindness, of your intentions.
Those who are as sad as I am can alone tell the value of tenderness
and sympathy."
Edward remained this day and the following at the castle, and felt
quite at home with its worthy inmates. He slept twice in the
haunted room. He went away, and came back often; was always welcomed
cordially, and always quartered in the same apartment. But, in spite
of all this, he had no clew, he had no means of lifting the vail of
mystery which hung round the fate of Ferdinand Hallberg and of Emily
Varnier.
* * * * *