My servant had neither seen nor heard any thing; indeed his replies to me were conveyed in a tone that shewed in what light he regarded my questioning. It was scarcely possible that he could not have been struck with the bright glare that illuminated a portion of the castle, yet he had not seen it; and as to voices, he stoutly averred that, although he could distinctly note the clatter of the mill in the valley below us, he had heard no human sound since we left the little inn. It was to no purpose that I questioned and cross-questioned. I soon saw that my eagerness was mistaken by him for evidence of wandering faculties; and I perceived, in his anxiety that I should return, a fear, that my malady had taken some new turn. So far, too, was he right. My head was, indeed, troubled--strange fancies and shadowy fears crossing my excited mind as I went; so that, ere I reached my inn, I really was unable to collect my faculties, and separate the dream-land from the actual territory of fact. And now it is with painful effort I write these lines, each moment doubting whether I should not erase this, or insert that. Were it not for this glove, that lies on my paper before me, I should believe all to be mere illusion. What a painful struggle this is, and how impossible to allay the fears of self-deception! At one moment I am half resolved to order a saddle-horse and return to Eberstein--for what?--with what hope of unravelling the mystery? At the next I am determined to repair to the Countess’s villa near the town, and ask if she has returned; but how shall I venture on such a liberty? If my ears had not deceived me, she is and must be Caroline Graham; and yet would I not rather believe that my weary brain had wandered, than that this were so? But what are these sounds of voices in the antechamber? I hear Guckhardt’s voice! Yes: my servant had thought it prudent to fetch the doctor, and he has been here and felt my pulse, and ordered cold to my temples, and a calming draught. It is clear, then, that I have been ill, and I must write no more! CHAPTER XI. Gasthaus, Zum Bär, Dallas, Tyrol. It is exactly seven weeks this day since I last opened my journal. I promised Guckhardt not to look into it for a month, and so I have well kept my word! It would seem, indeed, a small privation in most circumstances to abstain from chronicling the ebbing hours of a life; but Egotism is next of kin to Sickness, and I can vent mine more harmlessly here than if spent in exhausting the patience of my friends. Some listener must be found to the dreamy querulousness of the invalid, and why not his own heart?