"It's not you," he said, after a pause. "She said you didn't want to do it, but you'd have to do it; for you were a bad man once, and you'd have to do it over again," said Carl. "What you'd done before, for someone had said so. I don't know who they were." He had got the tale so mixed up that I could scarcely follow his meaning. "When will you give me the dog?" he finished, irrelevantly enough. "I'll give you him--I'll give you him to-morrow," I said, "if father will let me. But he's sure to, if I ask him." Scarcely had I finished speaking than the door opened and Gretel appeared. She stood for a moment when she saw us together, as though the sight had turned her into stone. Then she came towards us. "How did you get here?" said she to me. "Through that door," I answered her. She took me by the hand and led me away. As she did so, something closed round my neck, and something touched me on the cheek. It was Carl, who had put his arms round my neck and kissed me. Ah, little Carl, little Carl! Little we knew how next we should meet, or the manner of that meeting! CHAPTER X THE DEATH OF VOGEL "Joubert, what is father doing?" "He is playing cards down below with the gentlemen." I was undressing to go to bed that same night, and Joubert was expediting my movements, anxious, most likely, to go downstairs and drink with the house-steward. "Joubert, I wish he were here." "Why?" "I don't know; but I am frightened." "Of what?" "I don't know." Joubert blew out the light and left the room, and I lay looking at the shadows the furniture made on the wall by the dim glimmer of the nightlight. The door leading to my father's room was open. This did not give me any comfort--rather the reverse; for the next room was in darkness, and I could not help imagining faces peeping at me from the darkness. When frightened at night like this, I generally told myself fairy tales to keep away the terrors. I tried this to-night with a bad result, for the attempt instantly brought up Vogel and the old woman who lived in the wood. Now, there was something in this fairy tale that my heart knew to be evil and malign. What this something was I could not tell, but it was there, and the story did not bring me any peace. The clock in the turret struck ten, and I saw vividly the Man in Armour up there alone in the dark, wheeling to his work. There was something terrific in this iron man. A live tiger was a thing to me less fearful. Not for worlds would I have gone up alone to watch him at his work, even at a safe distance. The fact that the hammer had nearly killed me did not contribute much to this fear. I knew that was not his fault. I was terrified by Him. Then I fell thinking of my promise to little Carl to give him Marengo, and, thinking of this, I fell asleep.