and several high
officers of state, followed Clodwig's body to the tomb of the
Wolfsgartens.

The bells rang from mountain and valley: it was the funeral of the last
of the Wolfsgartens.

Sonnenkamp had meant to make one of the funeral-procession: he had
actually started for Wolfsgarten; but he was not to be seen among the
mourners.

The Major said to Eric that Sonnenkamp was right not to be present: he
would have attracted too much attention; and have destroyed the
solemnity of the occasion.

Sonnenkamp spent the whole day in the village inn near by. He knew
that, wherever he showed himself, he would excite curiosity and horror,
and hid himself as well as he could, behind a large newspaper, which he
pretended to be reading. He could hear the talk of the men in the
public room without; and the chief speaker among them was a Jew, a
cattle-dealer, who said,--

"That Herr Sonnenkamp never gave us a chance to earn any thing. Very
fine of him, wonderfully fine! What ill report has not been circulated
of us Jews! But we never trafficked in slaves!"

The conversation, however, soon took a different turn; and they spoke
of the report of the Countess having murdered her husband, which was
true, they said, for all the doctor's maintaining that the red mark
about the dead man's throat was caused by a little cord on which he
always wore the picture of his first wife.

A sudden light flashed into Sonnenkamp's face at hearing this charge
against Bella thus insisted upon. If any thing could drive her to a
decision, it was this. Bella's indignation at the suspicion must be
favorable to his plans. "The chief thing," he said to himself, "will be
to get her to discuss the matter: the moment she does that, she is
won."

Finally, Lootz returned, whom Sonnenkamp had sent to gain intelligence
of every thing that was going on.

CHAPTER XVI.

AWAY UNDER FIERY RAIN!

A damp, autumnal fog penetrated Clodwig's sick-room through the open
windows, and lay in drops on the brow of the statue of Victory.

Still and desolate it was at Wolfsgarten: even Pranken had gone.

Bella sat in her room enveloped in her mourning weeds. She had black
bracelets on her wrists, and had just been trying on her black gloves.
She drew them off now, laid her hands together, and gazed with that
terrible Medusa look into vacancy, into the future, into the great
blank. "You are alone," said a v