l, if you allow, arrange the
posts, and look after things in general."

Once more Anton went round the court and the stables. Here, too, quiet
was restored: only the horses restlessly stamped their hoofs on the hard
ground. Anton gently opened the door of the women's rooms, in the second
of which the wounded had been laid. As he entered, he saw Lenore on a
stool near the straw beds, two of the stranger women at her feet. He
bent down over the couch of the wounded: the colorless face and
disordered hair of the unfortunate men looked ghastly on the white
pillows which Lenore had snatched from her own bed.

"How fares it with you?" whispered Anton.

"We have tried to bind up the wounds," replied Lenore. "The forester
says that there is hope of both."

"Then," continued Anton, "leave them in charge of the women, and avail
yourself of these hours of rest."

"Do not speak to me of rest," said Lenore, rising. "We are in the
chamber of death." She took him by the hand, and led him to the opposite
corner, drew aside a dark cloak, and pointed to a human form beneath it.
"He is dead!" said she, with a hollow voice. "As I raised him with these
hands, he died. His blood is on my clothes; and it is not the only blood
that has been spilled to-day. It was I," she wildly cried, convulsively
pressing Anton's hand, "it was I who began this blood-shedding. How I am
to bear this curse, I know not; how I am to live on after this day, I
know not. If I have henceforth a place in this world, it is in this
room. Leave me here, Wohlfart, and think no more about me."

She turned away and resumed her seat on the stool by the side of the
straw bed. Anton drew the cloak over the dead, and silently left the
room. He went next to the guard-room and took up his gun. "I am going to
the tower, forester," said he.

"Each has his own way," muttered the old man. "The other is wiser--he
sleeps. But it will be cold up there; this one shall not be without a
wrap." He sent a man up with a villager's cloak, and ordered him to
remain with the gentleman.

Anton told the man to lie down and sleep, and wrapped himself up in the
warm covering. Then he sat in silence, resting his head against the wall
over which Lenore had leaned as she fired, and his thoughts flew over
the plain--from the gloomy present to the uncertain future. He looked
beyond the circle of the enemy's sentinels, and over the darker boundary
of the fir woods, which kept him prisoner here, an