"Thus I spoke to myself, and considered myself almost justified, even before my own conscience. Blind creature that I was! * * * * * "And once more the gloaming came, once more the setting sun cast its red light through the windows. "Martha's face was bathed in a purple glow, in her hair little lights sparkled, and the hand that lay on the coverlet looked as though illumined from within. "I drew the bed-screen closer around her, so that the flimmering rays should not trouble her. "Then I saw hanging on the wall a withered ivy wreath, which I had not noticed before, a wreath such as I was wont to send on special occasions for our parents' graves. Perhaps that was where this one, too, came from. At the present moment it appeared as if woven of flames, everything about it lived phantastically. And when I looked more closely, it even seemed to me as if it began to revolve, and to emit a cascade of sparks, like a real wheel of fire. "'Dear me, now you are already beginning to see visions,' I said to myself, and tried to gain new strength by pacing up and down. But I felt so dizzy, that I was obliged to hold on to the chairs--I gasped for breath. "Oh, this smell of carbolic--this sickly-sweet odour! It enveloped my senses, it dimmed my thoughts, it spread a presentiment of death and terror all around. "Then the old doctor came, looked keenly into my face, and ordered me in his fatherly, gruff manner to go forthwith into the open and get some fresh air. He himself would watch till I returned. And in spite of my remonstrance he pushed me out of the door. "If I could have guessed what was awaiting me, no power on earth would have moved me to cross the threshold! "Now I drew a deep breath as I stepped out into the courtyard. The evening air refreshed me like a cooling bath. The last gleam of daylight was vanishing, and veiled in bluish vapours the autumn night sank down upon the earth. "The two hunting dogs sprang towards me, and then raced off towards the old castle ruins. "Unconsciously I followed in their track, walking half in my sleep, for the atmosphere of the sick room was still acting upon my senses. "A mouldering scent of fading weeds and weather-beaten stones wafted towards me from the brickwork. An old porch spread its arch over me. I stepped into the interior. The walls towered up black all round me, the dark sky looked down upon them with its bluish lights. "Then not far from me I saw a dark figure, the outlines of which I recognised at once, crouching among the loose stones. "'Robert!' I call out, astonished. "He jumped up. 'Olga?' he cried in answer. 'Do you bring bad news?' "'Not so.' say I, 'your uncle, the doctor, sent me out, and----' then suddenly I feel as if the ground were giving way beneath my feet. "'Take care!' I hear his warning voice, but already I am sinking, together with the crumbling stones, about a man's length down into the darkness.