At some little distance rose the ruins of the once powerful castle of Rudstein. This had originally been the home of the Di Venonis; but an evil genius seemed to enter into it, and for two or three generations such ill-luck attended the family that they decided to desert their ancestral home. It was unroofed, and left to wind and weather and the evil things that haunt the great forest. One tower was left standing only, as a sort of landmark. In the meantime the new castle had risen, and here the family installed themselves. Here many of them paid the debt of nature, and here the last male representative was born. Here in lonely grandeur the widowed mother lived, surrounded by a retinue of servants and retainers, and having for companion her one sister--a much younger woman, of great beauty and lively disposition. She was known as the Lady Hilda, and it was said that she and her sister were by no means always in accord. She protested against the gloomy surroundings in which the scion of the noble house was being brought up, and she urged Madame Di Venoni to keep more company, and relieve the castle, if possible, of the air of brooding melancholy which seemed to envelope it. But madame had her own notions. She wanted to mould her son after her own fashion. She was afraid of exposing him to evil influences. She would not depart from the traditions of her race. One day, when Reginald was about six years of age, a traveller came to the castle and begged for hospitality. It had been a terrible day--wild, stormy, and wet. The traveller was a mysterious looking man, who seemed to have travelled far on foot, and was weary, wet, and hungry. He was a foreigner, and spoke but little German. He was invited into the servants’ great hall, where food and drink were set before him, and as night approached he was conducted to a chamber situated on the top of a tower. That night a very violent storm, which had been threatening all day, burst over the country and did enormous damage. The thunder was terrific; the lightning incessant; the rain descended in a deluge. During the time that the storm was at its height a female servant, happening to glance from her window, which commanded a full view of the tower where the traveller was lodged, averred that she saw him walking about on the flat roof of the tower, and exposed to the full fury of the storm. She declared that he had more the appearance of a fiend than a man; that occasionally he broke into wild eldritch laughter, and ever and anon raised his hands aloft, as if daring the heavens and defying the lightning.