I looked, but the thing made little impression upon me. Few people can recognise their likeness in another. "Come," said Gretel, and she led us on to the playroom. Now, here let me give you the dark and gloomy fact that Philippe de Saluce had cruelly killed Margaret von Lichtenberg in a fit of madness and rage. He had drowned her in the lake which lies in the woods of Schloss Lichtenberg, one dark and sad day of December, in the year of our Lord 1611. He had slain himself, too, "body and soul," said the old chronicles. 'Alas, what man can slay his soul or save it from the punishment of its crimes! The playroom was full of toys, evidently Carl's, and we played till bedtime, Eloise and I. Then I was marched off to the door of my bedroom, where Joubert was waiting for me. A pretty chambermaid scuttled away at my approach. I will say for Joubert that, judging from my childish recollections, this cat-whiskered old fire-eater had an attraction for ladies of his own class quite incommensurate with his age and personal charms. My bedroom was a little room opening off my father's. When Joubert had tucked me up I fell asleep, and must have slept several hours, when I was awakened by the sound of voices. Joubert was assisting my father to undress. They were talking. No man, I think, ever saw Count Mahon drunk. I have seen him myself consume two bottles of port without turning a hair. They built men differently in those days. But he was the soul of good-fellowship; and how much he and Bismarck had consumed together that night the butler of Schloss Lichtenberg alone knew. "Joubert," said my father, "this relation of mine, Baron Lichtenberg, of the Schloss Lichtenberg, in the province of What-do-you-call-it--put my coat on that chair--strikes me as being a German, and, more than that--mark you, Joubert, madness lies in the eyes of a man. I say nothing, but I am glad the blood of the Lichtenbergs does not run in the veins of the Mahons." Then, just before he fell asleep, and I could hear Joubert giving the bedclothes a tuck at his back: "Ireland for ever!" said my father. Yet he was a Frenchman, a Commander of the Legion of Honour, a soldier of the Emperor. IN VINO VERITAS! Then I fell asleep, and scarcely had sleep touched me than I entered dreamland. I was in the pine forest, standing just where the carriage had stopped and where the sound of the distant horn had come to us from the depths of the trees. I was lost, and someone was calling to me. It was very dark. In this tragic dream, the terror and mystery of which even still haunts me, I could see nothing save the outlines of the trees dimly visible; and I followed the voice through the increasing gloom till at last the darkness complete and absolute ringed me round like an iron band, and I knew that the trees had ceased to be, and before me lay water. A gasping and bubbling sound came from the invisible water, and I knew that it was the sound of a person drowning. Drowning in the dark.