Foreshadowings of undisciplined madness and uncontrolled self-abandon swept like lightning flashes through her brain. A consuming fever within her relaxed her limbs. It made the dress she wore, the room she was in, the park, the world seem too small for her, and filled her soul with a crowd of dancing fiery shapes, a whirl of reflected masculine passions. On such nights as these the colonel would come to her, in a more or less intoxicated condition, when the guests were gone, and reproach her mildly for not being "ladylike" enough; then, when she tried to defend herself, he would kiss her tears away and throw himself beside her on the bed. Shivering with disgust at his drunkenness, her conscience a prey to groundless pangs, yet for all that happy and relieved to feel herself released from a torturing anxiety, she fell asleep in his arms. There were other nights when she felt restless and lonely and would have been glad of his company, when she longed in soul as well as body to cling humbly to him; but he did not come, and locked his door. On the whole, he treated her kindly. To him she was a light fragile toy, not to be played with too often in case of damage, but to be put away carefully after use till next time--and this suited her well enough. At least she personally was spared the terror of his outbursts of fury, which two or three times a day threatened to shiver the walls of the castle to atoms. Even Fraeulein Von Schwertfeger hardly knew how to meet them, and bowed her head and bit her lips as to an inevitable fate when the storms burst.