"Your daughter is engaged to Lieutenant von Stielow?" The countess looked at him, almost rigid with amazement. She began to fear she had admitted a madman. A slight shiver passed through Clara's tender form; deep paleness overspread her features, and she did not dare to lift her eyes to this man, for an instinctive suspicion warned her he must be the bearer of something evil. Herr Balzer drew a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his eyes. In a theatrical manner he walked towards the countess, exclaiming, whilst he stretched out his hand: "Countess, you will understand me at once, you must understand me; I trust my fate to your discretion,--only in common with yourself can this melancholy transaction--" "I must really beg you, sir," said Countess Frankenstein, looking anxiously at the bell, from which she was separated by Herr Balzer, "I must really beg you to state the facts." "Herr von Stielow," said Balzer, again covering his eyes with his large yellow silk pocket-handkerchief. Clara folded her hands in breathless suspense. "Herr von Stielow," repeated Herr Balzer, in a voice that appeared to struggle for composure, "that volatile young man who is so happy in the possession of so lovely, so worthy a fiancée," he bowed to Clara, who turned from him with disgust, "this volatile young man dares to rob me of my happiness, to destroy my peace--he keeps up a criminal correspondence with my wife." With a low cry, Clara sank down upon the chair before which she stood, and wept silently. Countess Frankenstein remained standing upright. Her eyes rested fiercely and proudly upon this detestable messenger of evil, and in a voice in which no emotion was perceptible, she asked: "And how do you know this, sir? Are you quite sure?" "Alas! only too sure," cried Herr Balzer, pathetically, again applying his handkerchief to his eyes, which were quite red with repeated rubbing. "Some time ago," he said, "my friends warned me; but my confidence in my wife--I love my wife, gracious countess: ah! she was my whole happiness--prevented my heeding these warnings; then, too, Baron von Stielow's engagement with the lovely countess"--he again bowed to Clara--"was well known in Vienna; I felt quite safe, since I was simple-hearted enough,"--he laid his hand on his black satin waistcoat--"to believe such an error impossible." "Well?" asked the countess. "At last, by chance--oh! my heart will break when I think of it--yesterday I discovered the frightful truth." The countess made a movement of impatience. He threw a side glance at the easy-chair, in which the younger lady sat motionless, her face covered with her handkerchief, and with the malice of vulgar natures who instinctively hate those of a higher grade, he seemed disposed to prolong her torture.