I'll have a time of it; for nobody can
go it like the Screamer. Come along with me, Herr Captain, put up your
horse, we've a good stable, it's a first-rate inn."

Eric could not reconcile the contradiction: he comes from a death-bed
into the very midst of jollity. He told Claus nothing of Clodwig's
decease, and only begged to be allowed to ride on, and so left them.

He reached Villa Eden.

"Has Bella any female friend with her," the Professorin asked, as soon
as she learned of Clodwig's death.

Eric said that she had not. It was painful to the Professorin that she
could not render any assistance and consolation to Bella. Bella had
triumphed in the fact, that, self-contained, she had been more feared
than loved by women; and now, in her time of affliction, she had no one
whose right and dutiful privilege it was to come to her, that she might
lay her head, weighed down with sorrow and tears, upon a friendly
bosom. But Aunt Claudine said to Eric,--

"When you drive to Wolfsgarten again, take me with you."

Manna begged Eric to rest; but Eric saw that there was no rest for him,
for he received very soon a note from Bella by a messenger, in which
were these words, written in great haste,--

"You must come immediately to bear witness for me. I am ruined and
disgraced."

Eric drove to Wolfsgarten. Aunt Claudine accompanied him, and Professor
Einsiedel had offered his services also; but the Mother and Manna urged
him to remain with them. The Professor was a consolation and a quiet
support for them at the Villa. Eric promised to return that night. What
can have happened at Wolfsgarten in these few hours since Clodwig's
death?

They came to Wolfsgarten. The servants stood around, and looked shyly
at Eric; one of them saying,--Eric heard it very distinctly,--

"Who knows whether he has not helped do it?"

The Sister of Mercy came to meet Eric, and said to him hurriedly,--

"A horrible thing has happened. The layer-out of the corpse, in
removing the clothes, found a wound upon the Count's neck, and has
called the coroner: now it is said that Count Clodwig was strangled.
You were present until the very last breath, you are involved in the
most horrible suspicion. Inconceivable, incomprehensible! If the Doctor
would only come! We have despatched messengers everywhere for him; but
he is not to be found."

Bella had heard of Eric's arrival, and pulled incessantly at the bell:
she desired that he would come to her. Eri