The day was breaking ere I came to myself; I arose, all was quiet around me. I walked to the boat--the boatmen were sleeping; I awoke them, and we returned to Dresden. I threw myself upon my bed--my brain seemed stupified and exhausted--I fell into a profound sleep, and woke not till late the following evening. A messenger had brought a note from the Count--“The Countess is worse.” The note detailed briefly that she had passed a feverish and disturbed night, and that the medical attendants had never left the villa. Was it then but a dream, my dreadful vision of the past night? and had my mind, sorrowing for the affliction of my best friend, conjured up the awful scenes I believed to have witnessed? How could it be otherwise? The _billet_ I received told most distinctly that she was confined to her bed, severely, dangerously ill; and of course watched with all the care and attention the most sedulous anxiety could confer. I opened the picture, and then conviction flashed with lightning’s rapidity upon me, that it was not delusion--that no dream had brought these images before my mind. “Ah,” I cried, “my friend, my patron, how have I betrayed thee? Why did I not earlier communicate the dreadful story of the picture, and thus guard you against the machinations by which the fiend himself has surrounded you? But then, what had I to tell? how embody the vague and shadowy doubts that took, even in my own mind, no palpable shape or form?” That entire day was passed in alternate resolution and abandonment; now, determined to hasten to the villa, and disclose to the Count every circumstance I had seen, and then thinking how little such mere suspicion would gain credence, and how unfit the present moment to obtrude upon his breaking and distracted heart the horrid dread that haunted mine. Towards evening a messenger arrived, breathless with haste. He brought no note, but merely bade me hasten to the villa, as the Count wished to see me with all possible despatch. I mounted the servant’s horse, and in a few minutes reached the place. Servants were running hither and thither distractedly. I asked, eagerly, How was the Countess? No one could tell, but all seemed to imply that there was no hope of recovery. I entered the large spacious and hall, and threw myself upon a sofa; and as I looked around upon the splendid hangings, the gilded cornices, and marbled pillars, and thought upon that sorrow such splendour surrounded, my heart sickened. A shadow fell upon the brightly polished floor. I looked up--a figure stood at the window of the hall, and stared me steadily in the face. The eyes glared wildly, and the dark, malignant features were lit up with a scornful scowl of more than human hate and triumph. It was the incarnation of the Evil One exulting over a fallen and lost spirit. A loud shriek rent the air behind me. I dared not turn my eyes from the horrid sight before me. “Oh, Heavens! it is true!--he is, he is the Tutore!” I cried, as the