Clementina

The Count smiled.

"Your visit is not so unexampled as you are inclined to think. Nearly

thirty years ago a young man as you are came in just such a plight as

you and stood outside this window at two o'clock of a dark morning. Even

so early in my life I was at my books," and he smiled rather sadly. "I

let him in and he talked to me for an hour of matters strange and

dreamlike, and enviable to me. I have never forgotten that hour, nor to

tell the truth have I ever ceased to envy the man who talked to me

during it, though many years since he suffered a dreadful doom and

vanished from among his fellows. I shall be glad, therefore, to hear

your story if you have a mind to tell it me. The young man who came

upon that other night was Count Philip Christopher von Königsmarck."

Wogan started at the mention of this name. It seemed strange that that

fitful and brilliant man, whose brief, passionate, guilty life and

mysterious end had made so much noise in the world, had crossed that

lawn and stood before that window at just such an hour, and maybe had

sat shivering in Wogan's very chair.

"I have no such story as Count Philip von Königsmarck no doubt had to

tell," said Wogan.

"Chevalier," said Count Otto, with a nod of approval, "Königsmarck 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

Würtemberg at the palace in Stuttgart, but Königsmarck 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 Königsmarck 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.