"Go to your room, my child," said the countess, "you need rest. I will consider how matters can be arranged in the best and quietest way. The baron's absence makes it easier. We will go into the country; I will give the needful orders. Calm and compose yourself, that the world may perceive nothing. It is our duty to bear our sorrows alone: only vulgar souls show their troubles to the world. God will comfort you, and on the heart of your mother you will always find a place to weep." And gently raising her daughter, she led her from the salon to the inner apartments, belonging exclusively to the ladies. The regular strokes of the old clock's pendulum echoed through the silence of the large, empty room, and the ancestors' portraits looked down from their frames with their unchanging well-bred smile; their eyes too, though they looked so calm and cheerful, had wept in days long past, and with proud strength they had forced their tears back into their hearts, to avoid the pity or the spiteful joy of the world, and time as it rolled on, after hours of sorrow and pain, had brought the moment of happiness. There was nothing now in this old home of an old race. The loud clatter of a sword was heard in the ante-room. The servant opened the door, and Lieutenant von Stielow entered, fresh and cheerful. He looked round the room with sparkling eyes. He turned with disappointment to the servant. "The ladies were here a moment ago," he said. "The countess had just received a person on business; they must have gone to their own apartments. I will send, and mention that Baron--" "No, my friend," cried the young officer, "do not announce me; the ladies will soon return, and I shall surprise them. Say nothing." The servant bowed, and left the room. The young officer walked several times up and down the room. A smile of happiness rested on his face--the joy of reunion, after an eventful separation, during which he had been threatened by death in many forms; the anticipation of the joyful surprise he should behold in the eyes of his beloved, all combined to fill his young, fresh heart with joy and enchantment. He went up to the low fauteuil, in which Countess Clara usually sat beside her mother, and he pressed his lips against the back, where he knew her head had rested. Then he seated himself in the chair, half closed his eyes, and gave himself up to a sweet, soft reverie, and the old clock's pendulum measured the time the young man spent in happy dreams, with the same regular stroke as it had numbered the moments of torture that had wrung the heart of her who filled his dreams.