‘Spirits of the damned, I thank you for your assistance,’ exclaimed the count, as if he had become suddenly frenzied. ‘I have wooed my fair bride bravely. She is mine--mine for ever. Aye, body and soul, both mine; mine in life, and mine in death. What, in tears, my sweet one, ere yet the honeymoon is past? Why! indeed, you have cause for weeping; but when next we meet we shall meet to sign the nuptial bond.’ He then imprinted a cold salute on the cheek of his young bride, and softening down the unutterable horrors of his countenance, requested her to meet him at eight o’clock on the ensuing evening in the chapel adjoining the castle of Wolfspring. She turned round to him with a passionate cry of pain, and as if to implore him to release her from her rash vow, but he had gone--disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. Marguerite arose with a sense of unutterable horror weighing her down. On entering the castle she was observed to be weeping, and her relations vainly endeavoured to ascertain the cause of her uneasiness; but the tremendous oath she had sworn completely paralysed her faculties, and she was fearful of betraying herself by even the slightest intonation of her voice or the least variable expression of her countenance. When the evening was concluded the family retired to rest; but Marguerite, who was unable to sleep, owing to the troubled state of her mind, requested to be allowed to remain alone in the library that adjoined her apartment.