"Who sent you after him?" "I was not sent after him. I was bidden to come hither by my mistress." "Ah! she sent you!" I cried. "Give the cross back to Father Spaur, and with it my most grateful thanks. He has done me better service than ever did my dearest friend." I reasoned it out in this way. Father Spaur was bent on appropriating Lukstein and its broad lands to the Church. To that end, the Countess must, at all costs, be hindered from a second marriage. What motive could he have in prompting Groder to make an end of me, unless--unless Ilga now and again let her thoughts stray my way? And to confirm my conjecture, to rid it of presumption, I had this certain knowledge that she had sent Otto to see that I came to no harm at his hands. I should add that my speculations during the winter months had in some measure prepared me to entertain this notion. From constantly analysing and pondering all that she had said to me in the pavilion, and bringing my recollections of her change in manner to illumine her words, I had come, though hesitatingly, to a conclusion very different from that which I had originally formed. I could not but perceive that it made a great difference whether or no I had been alone upon my first coming to the Castle. Besides, I realised that there was a pregnant meaning which might be placed to the sentence which had so perplexed me: "Would that I had the strength to resist, or the weakness to yield!" And going yet further back, I had good grounds from what she had let slip to believe that there was something more than a regard for herself in the entreaty which she had addressed to me in London, that I should not tax Marston with treachery in the matter of the miniature. Otto gave me back the cross. "It is a mistake," said he. "Father Spaur has gone from Lukstein on a visit." "Then," said I, "present it to your mistress. She has more claim to it than I." That night Otto slept in the loft in Groder's place. "You are sure," he asked, "that no one remained behind with Groder yesterday afternoon?" "Quite," said I. "None the less, I should sleep on the trap if I were you, and 'twere wise to carry your hatchet to bed for company." "But they take it from me each night," I replied eagerly. "You must tell them." "I will. But there's no cause for fear." 'Twas not at all fear which prompted my eagerness; but I bethought me if I had the loft to myself, and the axe ready to my hand, 'twould be a strange thing if I could not find a way out by the morning. Thereupon we fell to talking again of Groder's attempt upon my life, and he repeated the words which he had used at the time. "You were never nearer your death but once." "And when was that once?" I asked drowsily. He laughed softly to himself for a little, and then he replied; and with his first sentence my drowsiness left me, just as a mist clears in a moment off the hills. "Do you remember one night in London that your garden door kept slamming in the wind?"