"I ought also to state that, just as I was leaving the room, one of the countess's female attendants entered all in a hurry, and said, 'His highness will be here in an hour's time!'" "You are sure you heard those words?" asked Polidori. "Quite, quite sure, sir! And I remember it the more, because I immediately began wondering in my own mind what highness she could mean." "It is quite clear," said Polidori, mentally, "she expects the prince; but how comes that about? What strange course of events can have induced him to visit one he ought never again to meet? I know not why, but I greatly mistrust this renewal of intimacy. Our position, bad as it is, may even be rendered still worse by it." Then, addressing himself to the clerk, he added, "Depend upon it there is nothing of any consequence in the message you have brought; 'tis merely the effects of a wandering imagination on the part of the countess; but, to prevent your feeling any uneasiness, I promise to acquaint M. Ferrand with it directly he is well enough to converse upon any matter of business." We shall now conduct the reader to the house of the Countess Sarah Macgregor. CHAPTER II. RODOLPH AND SARAH. A salutary crisis had occurred, which relieved the Countess Macgregor from the delirium and suffering under which, for several days, her life had been despaired of. The day had begun to break when Sarah, seated in a large easy chair, and supported by her brother, Thomas Seyton, was looking at herself in a mirror which one of her woman on her knees held up before her. This was in the apartment where La Chouette had made the attempt to murder. The countess was as pale as marble, and her pallor made her dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows even more striking; and she was attired in a dressing-gown of white muslin. "Give me my bandeau of coral," she said to one of her women, in a voice which, although weak, was imperious and abrupt. "Betty will fasten it on for you," said Seyton; "you will exhaust yourself; you are already very imprudent." "The bandeau,--the bandeau!" repeated Sarah, impatiently, who took this jewel and arranged it on her brow. "Now fasten it, and leave me!" she said to the women. The instant they were retiring, she said, "Let M. Ferrand be shown into the little blue salon." Then she added, with ill-dissembled pride, "As soon as his royal highness the Grand Duke of Gerolstein comes, let him be introduced instantly to this apartment." [Illustration: "_Was Looking at Herself in a Mirror_" Original Etching by Adrian Marcel] "At length," said Sarah, as soon as she was alone with her brother, "at length I trust this crown--the dream of my life: the prediction is on the eve of fulfilment!" "Sarah, calm your excitement!" said her brother to her; "yesterday your life was despaired of, and to be again disappointed would deal you a mortal blow!"