r so much mystery, I wonder?" musingly
observed the baroness.

"That I cannot say. I can furnish only the data; for the deductions I
must refer your ladyship to the Herr Doctor."

"Ah, true!" ejaculated her ladyship, joining in the general laughter.
"The doctor, to be sure! If you are the county clock, Herr Doctor,
surely you ought to know something about our mysterious neighbors?"

"I have two versions, either of which your ladyship is at liberty to
accept," promptly responded the doctor. "According to the first
'authentic' declaration, the nameless count is the chief of a band of
robbers, who ply their nefarious trade in a foreign land. The lady is
his mistress. She fell once into the hands of justice, in Germany, and
was branded as a criminal on her forehead. That accounts for the heavy
veil she always wears--"

"Oh, that is quite too horribly romantic, Herr Doctor!" interrupted the
baroness. "We cannot accept that version. Let us hear the other one."

"The second is more likely to be the true one. Four years ago the
newspapers were full of a remarkable abduction case. A stranger--no one
knew who he was--abducted the wife of a French officer from Dieppe.
Since then the betrayed husband has been searching all over the world
for his runaway wife and her lover; and the pair at the castle are
supposed to be they."

"That certainly is the more plausible solution of the mystery. But there
is one flaw. If the lovers fled here to Fertoeszeg to escape pursuit, the
lady has chosen the very worst means to remain undiscovered. Who would
recognize them here if they went about in the ordinary manner? The story
of the veil will spread farther and farther, and will ultimately betray
them to the pursuing husband."

By this time the reverend Herr Mercatoris had got the better of his bad
teeth, and was now ready to join the conversation.

"Gentlemen and ladies," he began, "allow me to say a word about this
matter, the details of which no one knows better than myself, as I have
for months been in communication with the nameless gentleman at the
castle."

"What sort of communication?"

"Through the medium of a correspondence, which has been conducted in
quite a peculiar manner. The count--we will call him so, although we are
not justified in so doing, for the gentleman did not announce himself as
such--the count sends me every morning his copy of the Augsburg
'Allgemeine Zeitung.' Moreover, I frequently receive letters from h