About a week later, in one of the reception-rooms of the castle, the priest of Saint Michael was sitting with his brother, who had lately arrived, and had sent a messenger to summon Valentin. The conversation between the brothers was evidently of a serious nature, and Professor Wehlau said at last, "Unfortunately, I can give you no hope. This last attack of the disease from which the Countess has suffered for so many years, is a mortal one. Her condition is, happily, free from pain, but it is hopeless. She may live four or five weeks longer; she will never witness her daughter's marriage." "I feared this when I saw the Countess last," rejoined Valentin. "But it is a comfort to have you here. I know what a sacrifice you make in coming in the midst of your university course, and when you have so entirely given up practice." Wehlau shrugged his shoulders: "What else could I do? My relations with the Steinrücks are almost as old and as intimate as your own; and then Michael, who brought the news of the Countess's illness, gave me no peace. He urged me so strongly that at last I consented to come. I thought it odd, for he knows the Countess only in society, but he insisted that I should yield to her request and come." The priest was evidently interested to hear this, but he merely asked, "And you brought Hans with you? I shall see him, then." "Certainly; he will go to you in a day or two. He of course stays with our relatives in Tannberg, while I take up my abode here on the Countess's account. The boy's whims are unaccountable. Early in April he began to talk of going to the mountains to sketch, and I had to convince him that it would be folly, since the mountains were then deep in snow. And when I made up my mind to come here, he suddenly discovered that it was necessary he should go to Tannberg for 'relaxation.' He must need it after all the flattery and nonsense that have been put into his head of late, and which my sister-in-law will doubtless keep fresh in his memory." "But you brought him?" "Brought him? As if I had anything to do with it! Oh, my gentleman is quite independent now. I dare not do anything to clip the wings of such a genius, however ridiculous may be the flights it undertakes. He came with me, and comes over here every day with the greatest regularity to inquire after me and the Countess. I can't understand the fellow any more than I can Michael. They could not show more tender interest in the Countess if she were their own mother. And she is in very good hands with the country physician here, and that young god-daughter of hers,--what is her name?" "Gerlinda von Eberstein." "Ah, yes! A queer little thing, who scarcely opens her lips, and makes the most remarkable courtesies. But she is a capital nurse, with her quiet, gentle ways. Countess Hertha is too agitated and anxious beside a sick-bed."