the same
time penetrated with a strange miraculous sense of bliss. Next morning
my eyes fell on a picture hanging near the bed, which I had never seen
there before. I shuddered, for it was Marguerite beaming on me with her
black brilliant eyes. I asked the servant whose picture it was, and
where it came from. He said it was the Chevalier's niece, the Marquise
de T----, and had always been where it was now, only I had not noticed
it; it had been freshly dusted the day before. The Chevalier said the
same. So that, whilst--waking or dreaming--my sole desire was to see
Angelica, what was continually before me was Marguerite. It seemed to
me that I was alienated, estranged, from myself. Some exterior foreign
power seemed to have possession of me, ruling me, taking supreme
command of me. I felt that I could not get away from Marguerite. Never
shall I forget the torture of that condition.

"One morning, as I was lying in a window seat, refreshing my whole
being by drinking in the perfume and the freshness which the morning
breeze was wafting to me, I heard trumpets in the distance, and
recognized a cheery march-tune of Russian cavalry. My heart throbbed
with rapture and delight. It was as if friendly spirits were coming to
me, wafted on the wings of the wind, speaking to me in lovely voices of
comfort, as if a newly-won life was stretching out hands to me to lift
me from the coffin in which some hostile power had nailed me up. One or
two horsemen came up with lightning speed, right into the castle
enclosure. I looked down, and saw Bogislav. In the excess of my joy I
shouted out his name; the Chevalier came in, pale and annoyed,
stammering out something about an unexpected billeting, and all sorts
of trouble and annoyance. Without attending to him, I ran downstairs
and threw myself into Bogislav's embrace.

"To my astonishment, I now learned that peace had been proclaimed a
long time before, and that the greater part of the troops were on their
homeward march. All this the Chevalier had concealed from me, keeping
me on in the chateau as his prisoner. Neither Bogislav nor I knew
anything in the shape of a motive for this conduct. But each of us
dimly felt that there must be something in the nature of foul play
about it. The Chevalier was quite a different man from that moment,
sulky and peevish. Even to lack of good breeding, he wearied us with
continual exhibitions of self-will, and naggling about trifles. Nay,
when, in the p