other, and tried to fasten my feet around
it. The operation was not an easy or rapid
one, and before it was accomplished Louise,
with a shriek of terror, had flown to the
window, and was endeavouring to hold me
back. But it was in vain her fragile
fingers clutched me; I was resolved to
succeed in my attempt; and now, indeed, I
felt my feet were fastened round the pipe
securely. Closer and closer I drew myself
towards it, and further from the window,
until, at last, I let go the mullion.

"Then it was that my poor sister, in her
nervous terror, bent her whole body out of
the window, and, stretching forth both
hands, she lost her balance, and fell, with
one wild scream, headlong into the moat
below!

"Never, if I were to live a thousand years,
can I forget that moment! How it was I
managed to slide down the pipe, I scarcely
know, now. I can just remember catching
sight of my mother's awful face, and hearing
her shrieks at the window; the next
minute I was in the water, and striking out
in the direction of something that floated
near me.

"Half a dozen men were in the moat as soon
as I was, and between them she was quickly
brought to shore, and laid upon the bank;
but, alas! the truth was evident at a
glance; there could not be a doubt about
it; she was dead. She had struck her
head in falling, and death had mercifully
been instantaneous. Would to God it
had come to my poor, afflicted mother!
. . . She had entered that room by the
panelled door, at the very moment that
Louise lost her balance and fell; and she
lost her reason from that hour. It was
Hanne who held her back when she would
have thrown herself out after her idolised
child. It was Hanne who again held her
back when she rushed at me with an open
knife. The dislike in which she had
always held me was now fomented to
positive hatred. She regarded me as the
wilful murderer of Louise, and the mere
mention of my name was enough to bring
on a paroxysm of mania. The doctor
decided at once that she must never be
permitted to see me. I was sent away to
college, and when, at rare intervals, I returned
here, my presence never failed to rouse her
out of her habitual condition of quiet harmless
melancholy into one of ungovernable
fury. Thus, for years past I have never
been able to set my foot within these walls.
The world has long believed my mother to
be dead; the poor faithful servants here
alone have tended and guarded their old
mistress, seeing that she came to no harm,
and keeping me regularly informed of the
state of her health. She never left the
schloss, but wandered to and from Louise's
room, by day and night, folding and
unfolding her child's clothes, looking at her
books in a vacant way, and careful that
every little article that had belonged to her
should be kept in the very place where
Louise left it. The servants told me that
she never spoke of Louise as dead; she was
always looking for her return. . .

"When I came to man's estate, my first
object was to consult, either personally or
by letter, all the most eminent surgeons in
Europe who have devoted themselves to the
study of insanity, as to my hapless mother's
condition. There were several consultations,
but little comfort came of them. All
agreed, indeed, that such a condition was
not absolutely hopeless. Cases had been
known when, by powerfully affecting the
heart upon the one subject which had
caused madness, the brain had regained its
equilibrium. But such cases were rare,
and how, in my mother's case, was this end
to be compassed? At last, Dr.——, a
man full of original expedients, said to me:
'Find, if you can, some girl who closely
resembles what your sister was. . . .
Introduce her into the schloss, as nearly as
possible under the same circumstances as
your sister . . . see what that will do.  . . .
It may open the sluices of all the poor
lady's tender maternal feelings, and thus
work a cure. Anyway, it can do no harm.
I will answer for it, she will not dislike, or
try to harm the girl.' . . .

"To comprehend my intense anxiety on
this subject, Magda, and the earnest longing
wherewith I set about my search, thou
must try and enter into my feelings during
all these years. Not alone had I been the
cause of my poor Louise's death, but also
of this enduring and yet more frightful
calamity, whereby my mother and I were
living on in the world as strangers to each
other. . . . It is hardly too much to say
that my whole life was embittered by
remorse  . . . To feel her hand laid upon
my head, to hear her say that she forgave
me this was the dearest hope I then
had. . . .

"For many years my search was fruitless.
I found fair-haired and gentle girls in
abundance, but whenever I tried to trace
the desired resemblance, it failed; either
voice, or face, or manner, or the soul
within, was utterly unlike Louise's. It is