Our maid-servant flew to meet me, all tremulous with agitation, as soon as I made my appearance in the anteroom. I immediately divined, from the expression of her face, that something unpleasant had occurred in our house during my absence.--And, in fact, I learned that half an hour before a frightful shriek had rung out from my mother's bedroom. When the maid rushed in she found her on the floor in a swoon which lasted for several minutes. My mother had recovered consciousness at last, but had been obliged to go to bed, and wore a strange, frightened aspect; she had not uttered a word, she had not replied to questions--she had done nothing but glance around her and tremble. The servant had sent the gardener for a doctor. The doctor had come and had prescribed a soothing potion, but my mother had refused to say anything to him either. The gardener asserted that a few moments after the shriek had rung out from my mother's room he had seen a strange man run hastily across the flower-plots of the garden to the street gate. (We lived in a one-story house, whose windows looked out upon a fairly large garden.) The gardener had not been able to get a good look at the man's face; but the latter was gaunt, and wore a straw hat and a long-skirted coat.... "The baron's costume!" immediately flashed into my head.--The gardener had been unable to overtake him; moreover, he had been summoned, without delay, to the house and despatched for the doctor. I went to my mother's room; she was lying in bed, whiter than the pillow on which her head rested.... At sight of me she smiled faintly, and put out her hand to me. I sat down by her side, and began to question her; at first she persistently parried my questions; but at last she confessed that she had seen something which had frightened her greatly. "Did some one enter here?" I asked. "No," she answered hastily, "no one entered, but it seemed to me ... I thought I saw ... a vision...." She ceased speaking and covered her eyes with her hand. I was on the point of communicating to her what I had heard from the gardener--and my meeting with the baron also, by the way ... but, for some reason or other, the words died on my lips. Nevertheless I did bring myself to remark to my mother that visions do not manifest themselves in the daylight.... "Stop," she whispered, "please stop; do not torture me now. Some day thou shalt know...." Again she relapsed into silence. Her hands were cold, and her pulse beat fast and unevenly. I gave her a dose of her medicine and stepped a little to one side, in order not to disturb her. She did not rise all day. She lay motionless and quiet, only sighing deeply from time to time, and opening her eyes in a timorous fashion.--Every one in the house was perplexed. VIII