But suddenly, my friend, my very marrow froze within me. I was frightened, horribly frightened, for in the corner to my left a curious little white heap had just come into view. Drawn by some over-mastering instinct I approached it, and even as I approached I wanted to bolt, and between my chattering teeth I muttered: "It's a hallucination. I'm dreaming. I _know_ I'm dreaming. I'm not at Hanover. This is Lautenburg. The palace. There's Doctor Cyrus Beck just round the corner working. There's the night-watchman. There's Ludwig, my servant. There's Major von Kessel, honest, kind Kessel ..." The heap of quicklime was now at my feet. I fell, rather than knelt, before it. Fantastic fragments were sticking out of it, shapeless, gruesome white fragments. Dithering as I was, how did I ever have the courage to pick one up, run my fingers over it, examine it.... Yet that is exactly what I did. I had that bone, a right tibia, in my hands, feeling it, examining it. And then I uttered a loud cry, for in the middle of that bone my finger came into contact with the mark of an old fracture. * * * * * * How I managed to give Duke Joachim his history lesson next morning is a thing I've never ceased to wonder at. I kept my eyes off the mirror, terrified lest I should see a ghastly face reflected in it. At eleven o'clock I was in the Archduchess's small boudoir. The old Russian waiting-woman went off to tell Melusine, who came at once. I could see from the half-humorous surprise in her manner that my call, at that hour, was considered extremely strange. "You want to see the Grand Duchess, my friend! You are very bold. Well, as it's you... I'm sure you wouldn't have come without some very good ..." As she spoke she drew aside the curtains. The sun shone full on my face. She started at my appearance, and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation. "I'll go and fetch her," she said simply. I seemed to have been walking in my sleep, pushed on by the force of the night's events. Left to myself my decision seemed utterly crazy. Why, in a minute's time I should certainly be taken for the madman I had brought myself to believe I was. How would Aurora take the story of my extraordinary adventure? "Save her from the fits of depression and that kind of spiritual disorder which are so fatal to her physical health." The words came back to me. It was the request made to me by the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus. _This_ was an odd way of carrying out his wishes. I wanted to bolt. But the Grand Duchess was already there. She was in such high spirits that morning that I thought I should never have the strength of mind to break my news to her. "Well, my friend," she said. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Have you changed your time-table? Have you decided to give me your mornings in future?" My tell-tale face produced the same effect on her as on Melusine. She took my arm and made me sit down on a sofa beside her.