The speaker was an old man, seated with his back to the door, his elbows on a writing-table, his head buried in his hands. He wore a black woollen gown, and above a bed at one end of the room hung a broken escutcheon, around which were grouped the broken collars of the orders of the Elephant and the Dannebrog; a count’s coronet, reversed, was fastened under the shield, and two fragments of a hand of Justice, tied crosswise, completed the strange ornamentation. The old man was Schumacker. “No, my Lord,” replied the officer; then he said to the stranger, “This is the prisoner;” and leaving them together, he closed the door, without heeding the shrill voice of the old man, who exclaimed: “If it is not the captain, I will see no one.” At these words the stranger remained by the door; and the prisoner, thinking himself alone,--for he had turned away,--fell back into his silent revery. Suddenly he exclaimed: “The captain has assuredly forsaken and betrayed me! Men,--men are like the icicle which an Arab took for a diamond; he hid it carefully in his wallet, and when he looked for it again he found not even a drop of water.” “I am no such man,” said the stranger. Schumacker rose quickly. “Who is here? Who overhears me? Is it some miserable tool of that Guldenlew?” “Speak no evil of the viceroy, my lord Count.” “Lord Count! Do you address me thus to flatter me? You have your labor for your pains; I am powerful no longer.” “He who speaks to you never knew you in your day of power, and is none the less your friend.” “Because he still hopes to gain something from me; those memories of the unhappy which linger in the minds of men are to be measured by the hopes of future gain.” “I am the one who should complain, noble Count; for I remember you, and you have forgotten me. I am Ordener.” A flash of joy lit up the old man’s sad eyes, and a smile which he could not repress parted his white beard, as when a sunbeam breaks through a cloud. “Ordener! Welcome, traveller Ordener! A thousand prayers for the happiness of the traveller who remembers the prisoner!” “But,” inquired Ordener, “had you really forgotten me?” “I had forgotten you,” said Schumacker, resuming his sombre mood, “as we forget the breeze which refreshes us and passes by; we are fortunate if it does not become a whirlwind to destroy us.” “Count Griffenfeld,” rejoined the young man, “did you not count upon my return?” “Old Schumacker did not count upon it; but there is a maiden here, who reminded me this very day that it was a year on the 8th of last May, since you went away.” Ordener started. “Heavens! Can it be your Ethel, noble Count?” “Who else?” “Your daughter, my Lord, has deigned to count the months of my absence! Oh, how many dreary days I have passed! I have traversed Norway from Christiania to Wardhus; but my journeyings always tended back toward Throndhjem.”