She had at last come to the large folding-doors opening into the picture-gallery. She had gone in. At the end of the long row of portraits, she had seen two leaning against the wall, and on examining them had seen that they were those of the late Graf Arthur and of her husband. They had come from Paris on the previous day, but had not been hung up, because they had been forgotten in the hurry and confusion caused by the preparations for the marriage. She had then lifted the portrait of Graf Arthur in her arms. It was very heavy, but she had not felt it. She had carried it to her room, and laid it on a table in the middle of the room, and had arranged the wax-candles round it in such a way as thoroughly to illuminate it. Then with difficulty controlling her nervous horror, she had sat down in the window and waited. The thoughts that had assailed her during those hours of passive endurance were maddening. It was not until the gray of the early morning that she had heard Graf Adam's step.... She had risen to meet him, pale and determined, and as he entered she had seen from his face that he had been drinking deeply. His eyes had at once fallen on the portrait of his victim. In the pale gray of the morning, and with the flickering light of the candles falling upon it, the pictured face had seemed alive and about to start out of its frame. She remembered how Graf Adam had started back on seeing it, and how his drunken senses had reeled with ghostly terror.... That was what she had counted upon.... She had then said in a clear hard voice: "Begone!... You are a murderer!... Your victim stands between you and me...." And Graf Adam had turned and staggered from the room. When he had gone, she had sunk back in her chair, with a beating heart and trembling limbs. A minute later she had heard a shot. Graefin Jadwiga closed her eyes, hoping thus to change the current of her thoughts. She clasped her hands over her face. In vain! The memories of the past persistently haunted her!... She thought of the wretched time she had passed through immediately after her husband's death--when she had been expected to weep and show grief for his death, although her only feeling had been a dumb horror. She had gone abroad as soon as she could. Life at the castle would have been unendurable in those days. She remembered how she had shone as a queen of fashion in luxurious Paris _salons_. She had seemed happy then, for her smile had been frequent, and her conversation both brilliant and witty. But in reality she had not been happy, because she had not been able to forget, and because the gay world and its amusements had not filled the void in her heart. Then temptation had come to her.... A fair-haired, pale, foolish ruler: the curse of his country; the worthy son of a half-imbecile father and a vicious mother. Pah! She had thrust him from her presence in disgust.