Benedict was finishing the reading of this letter when Lenhart appeared in the doorway, pale and dripping with water, and calling out: "Oh, how shall I tell you, M. Benedict! Madame Helen has just thrown herself into the river. Come, come at once!" Benedict looked round, seized a handkerchief that was lying on the bier, still perfumed and damp with the poor girl's tears, and rushed from the room. The carriage was at the door; he sprang into it. "To your house," he called sharply to Lenhart. The latter, accustomed to obey Benedict without asking why, put his horses to the gallop; moreover, his house was on the way to the river. The house being reached, he leaped from the carriage, took the staircase in three strides, and opening the door, called: "Here! Frisk!" The dog rushed out after his master and was in the carriage as soon as he. "To the river!" cried Benedict. Lenhart began to understand; he whipped up his horses and they galloped on as quickly as before. As they drove, Benedict divested himself of his coat, waistcoat, and shirt, retaining only his trousers. When they arrived at the river bank, he saw some sailors with boathooks who were raking the water for Helen's body. "Did you see her throw herself into the water?" he enquired of Lenhart. "Yes, your honour," he answered. "Where was it?" Lenhart showed him the spot. "Twenty florins for a boat!" shouted Benedict. A boatman brought one. Benedict, followed by Frisk, sprang into it. Then, having steered it into the line along which Helen's body had disappeared, he followed the current, holding Frisk by the collar, and making him smell the handkerchief that he had taken up from Karl's bed. They came to a place in the river where the dog gave a melancholy howl. Benedict let him loose, he sprang out and disappeared at once. An instant later he came to the surface and swam about above the same place howling dismally. "Yes," said Benedict, "yes, she is there." Then he, in his turn, dived, and soon reappeared bearing Helen's body on his shoulder. As Helen had wished, her body was, by Benedict's care, laid in the same coffin as Karl's. Her bridal garments were allowed to dry upon her and she had no other shroud. CHAPTER XXXVI "WAIT AND SEE" When Karl and Helen had been laid in their place of eternal rest, Benedict considered that the time had now arrived when, having no more services to perform for the family to which he had devoted himself, he might remind Sturm that he was Frederic von Bülow's executor. Always obedient to convention he dressed himself with the greatest care, hung the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the Guelphic Order to his buttonhole by a line gold chain and sent in his name to General Sturm. The general was in his study. He ordered Benedict to be shown in at once, and as he entered rose from his seat, showed him a chair, and sat down again. Benedict indicated that he preferred to stand.