Alma could hardly stand. Thea still looked at Werner with an unnaturally calm expression, and with not the faintest suspicion of what was to come. "Lothar!" came breathed like a sigh from Alma's pale lips. Thea's thoughts were not of him. "Tell me. I need no preparation; I am prepared," she said. "Your brother-in-law met with an accident in riding home from Eichhof, and is severely injured." Now Thea too grew pale. "Was he thrown? Is his life in danger?" she asked, in low, uncertain tones, while Alma's eyes never for one moment left Werner's face. "His condition leaves little room for hope. He was not thrown,--an accident, probably the result of carelessness----" "He is dead! he has shot himself!" Alma suddenly gasped. Her gloomy forebodings had at last found distinct expression. Thea looked at Werner. He was very pale, but he uttered no contradiction. Alma sank on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Thea slowly passed her hand across her forehead. "Dead,--shot," she repeated softly, as if hardly able to apprehend the meaning of the words. The erect figure tottered, and before Werner could spring forward to support her she fell fainting on the floor. Alma raised her head at Werner's exclamation of terror, and saw her sister's unconscious form. She called the servants and did all that was necessary to restore Thea, while she herself felt hardly aware of what had happened. She, the younger and weaker of the two sisters, had not fainted, while to Thea the thought that she might have had some share in Lothar's death had been like a destroying flash of lightning. Alma did not succumb, but deep darkness seemed to envelop her, in which she was aware only of the present moment and its duties; all else was a blank. She felt a dull pain in her head and heart, and would fain have cast herself on the earth and have wept passionately. But shame lest she should betray feelings that only the closest and dearest ties with Lothar could justify, restrained her, and Thea's helpless condition gave her a power of self-control of which she never could have believed herself capable. "I instantly telegraphed to your brother-in-law," Werner said to Alma, "and then hurried hither, because I knew that, with the garrison so near, you must hear the fatal news before to-morrow."