Poor Arwed sank upon a seat as if annihilated. The faithful Brodin observed him with looks of the deepest sympathy. All at once the youth's eyes began to flash with savage fury. He sprung up, and, seizing the old man with a lion's rage, thundered in his ears, 'this whole affair is a fable devised for my deception!' 'Holy Savior! what is it you think?' cried the trembling Brodin. 'I have read in many old tales,' cried Arwed, with bitter anguish, 'of pretended marriages, and forged letters of renunciation, by which hearts have been artfully torn asunder, that would else have remained eternally united.' 'Why, hey, count Arwed,' said Brodin chidingly, 'how can you so misjudge your noble father as to suppose him guilty of such an offence?' 'I know,' answered Arwed, 'that my father considers the dissolution of my connection with Georgina a matter of the utmost importance. A counsellor of the realm stands high enough to permit himself to do many things that would carry a common citizen to a criminal's dungeon. The whole may be a specimen of the newest Swedish political management.' 'Believe what you please, major!' angrily exclaimed Brodin. 'The letter you have just read, I received from the hands of the writer, when I was with her in obedience to your father's command.' 'Brodin!' said the agitated Arwed, 'you are an old man! So near the grave, you will not defile your soul with a lie; therefore answer me, honest and true, as you have been through the whole course of your long life--is Georgina actually married?' 'By my God and his holy gospel!' cried the gray old man, solemnly placing his hand upon his heart, 'I was myself, by her command, in the cathedral church of Lubec, and saw her married to the imperial counsellor von Eyben.' 'It is then true!' sighed Arwed, again sinking back into his seat. Brodin approached, with humid eyes, to speak some words of consolation,--but Arwed motioned him back, and the old man left the room in silent sorrow. CHAPTER XXXVIII. As Arwed was still sitting in his chamber, his arms convulsively folded upon his breast, as if he would stifle his inward grief by the outward pressure, with large tear-drops occasionally rolling down his pallid cheeks, a stranger suddenly entered the room. He was enveloped in a gray traveling cloak, and his hat was drawn down over his eyes. Stepping directly in front of Arwed, he threw off his cloak and cap. 'Swedenborg!' exclaimed Arwed, in a languid tone. 'The old _Fatum_,' spoke the seer, 'has again most unhappily kept troth with my presentiments. I see you again in the heaviest hour of your life, as I expected. But what I could not have expected is, to see you sinking under your sorrow. It becomes a man to struggle manfully against this evil fiend, and gloriously to vanquish; not to lay down his arms before him, like a wounded and disabled combatant.' 'You have never loved!' ejaculated Arwed; 'you cannot know the anguish which rends my heart.'