dangerous enmity, besides strengthening the painful impression
left on my own mind, and this corroboration of her own fear might be
instinctively suspected by Nora, even if I told her nothing?

"No," I decided; "better leave it a mystery, in any case, till we are
safely away from here." For, allowing that these people are perfectly
innocent and harmless, their even telling me simply, like the woman at
Gruenstein, that such a person _had_ been here, that he had fallen ill,
possibly died here--I would rather not know it. It is certainly not
probable that it was so; they would have been pretty sure to gossip
about any occurrence of the kind, taciturn though they are. The wife
would have talked of it to me--she is more genial than the others--for I
had had a little kindly chat with her the day before, _a propos_ of what
every mother, of her class at least, is ready to talk about--the baby!
A pretty baby too, though the last, she informed me with a sort of
melancholy pride, of four she had "buried"--using the same expression
in her rough German as a Lancashire factory hand or an Irish peasant
woman--one after the other. Certainly Silberbach was not a cheerful or
cheering spot. "No, no," I made up my mind, "I would rather at present
know nothing, even if there is anything to know. I can the more honestly
endeavour to remove the impression left on Nora."

The little girl was so easily awakened that I was half inclined to doubt
if she had not been "shamming" out of filial devotion. She looked ill
still, but infinitely better than the night before, and she so eagerly
agreed with me in my wish to leave the house as soon as possible,
that I felt sure it was the best thing to do. Reggie woke up rosy and
beaming--evidently no ghosts had troubled _his_ night's repose. There
was something consoling and satisfactory in seeing him quite as happy
and hearty as in his own English nursery. But though he had no uncanny
reasons like us for disliking Silberbach, he was quite as cordial in
his readiness to leave it. We got hold of Lieschen, and asked for our
breakfast at once. As I had told the landlady the night before that we
were leaving very early, our bill came up with the coffee. It was, I
must say, moderate in the extreme--ten or twelve marks, if I remember
rightly, for two nights' lodging and _almost_ two days' board for three
people. And such as it was, they had given us of their best. I felt a
little twinge of conscience, when I said