They were interrupted. The physician had arrived and wished to speak with his distinguished colleague. Wehlau rose and left the room. Then the servant added that the forester, Wolfram, was below, desiring to see his reverence. Valentin told the man to admit him, and upon his entrance said, kindly, "You here still, Wolfram? I thought you had gone home some days ago." "I am going to-morrow," the forester replied. "My business is finished in Tannberg; I wanted to ask once more after the gracious Countess. The servants told me that your reverence was here, and so I thought I----" He stammered and hesitated and seemed unable to proceed. "You wished to bid me good-bye," Valentin interposed. "Yes, I wanted that, and something else besides. I've been worried about the thing for a week, your reverence, and haven't breathed a word of it to a living soul; but I can't help it, I must tell your reverence." "Tell me, then. What is it?" Wolfram glanced towards the door, and then, approaching the priest, said, almost in a whisper,-- "'Tis Michael,--Captain Rodenberg, I mean. The next thing he'll snatch the sun from the sky if he takes it into his head to want it. What he's at now is not much less. It will make no end of a fuss in the Count's family. The general will rage and scold, and then Michael will be down upon him just as he was before. Oh, he'll stop at nothing." "Are you talking of Michael?" Valentin asked, bewildered. "He went to town long ago; my brother has just brought me a message from him." "That may be. I only know about the night of the storm. When I took the servant whom I found to the mountain chapel, as had been agreed, I left him there and went some distance towards the Eagle ridge just at day-dawn, in hopes of finding some trace of the captain or the Countess. I really did not think that I should ever see either of them again alive. But after a while I saw them both on a rock, and they were very much alive: he kissed her!" "What!" exclaimed the pastor, recoiling. "No wonder your reverence is shocked. I was too, but I saw it with my bodily eyes. He, Michael,--Captain Rodenberg I mean,--had his arm around the Countess's waist, and he kissed her. I thought the world had come to an end." Valentin would probably have thought the same had he not been in some measure prepared for the revelation; therefore he was more troubled than surprised as he said, more to himself than to the man, "It has come to a declaration, then. I feared this."