"I might have been a few hours in bed without being able to sleep, for it rained and blew that night fiercely, and the shutters creaked, and the hounds howled.--Then I heard a soft step in the passage before my door, and a hand seeking the knob of my door; somebody came in and walked up to my bed.--'Who is that?' I cried. 'It is I, Mother Claus,' said a low voice. It was Marie. 'Are you sick, child?'--'No,' she said, sitting down on my bed, 'I only come to say good-by to you, and to thank you for all the love and kindness you have shown me.' I thought she was going to take her own life, and said, horrified: 'For God's sake, child, what do you mean?'--'Don't be afraid, Mother Claus,' she said, and embraced me amid hot tears; 'I am going, but only from here. I have long wished it, and now the hour has come.'--'Why now?' I asked, 'where will you go to now, at night, and in such a night? Don't you hear how rain and wind howl with the hounds? And you know not the way.... You run into the jaws of death, and if you do not think of yourself, think at least of the child.'--'I am thinking of it,' she replied. 'It must not see the light here where its mother has been so very wretched; it must never know who its father was. Farewell, dear Mother Claus! may God bless you and preserve you! And fear not for me: I am not going alone; I have somebody with me, who will protect me and watch over me, and who would give his life for me.'--'Are you quite sure of that, child? I thought you had learnt what to think of the vows of men? Who is it?'--'I cannot tell you,' she replied, 'and now I must be gone.' She had risen from the bed. 'Wait,' I said, 'I will at least see you out of the castle.' "She begged me to stay, but I did not mind her; I had soon put on some clothes; I was firmly determined not to let her go, till I was quite sure that she knew what she was about. I was still afraid she might think of suicide. "When she saw that I was not to be turned aside from my purpose, she helped me to dress, and said: 'Well, then, come, Mother Claus; at least he will see now, that I have not been forsaken by everybody here.' "We went, holding each other's hand, on tip-toe down the passages, then down the staircase which leads from the old castle into the garden. It had ceased raining, and the moon was shining at intervals through the black drifting clouds. I still held Marie's hand in mine; she hastened onward, drawing me after her through the familiar avenues. When we passed a bench in one of the darker walks, where she had often been sitting with Harald, she stopped for a moment, and I felt her hand tremble. But she recovered herself instantly. 'No, no,' she whispered: 'he is right, Harold has never loved me, and I must not stay here any longer.'