The Herr only stopped in Tausens long enough to leave word at the inn for Dr. Putzer to come to the castle as soon as possible, and then drove on to Reifenstein. Here he took up his abode in his old room, while the nurse and child lived in another wing of the building. He sent to the farm in the valley for old Stoffel's two daughters. Trine and Lene, and the youngest son, Melcher, the stupidest of all, a perfect blockhead, and they were hired to do all the work of the household. Henceforth Herr von Heydeck led the life of a hermit in the castle; the only man with whom he had any intercourse in all the country round was tipsy Dr. Putzer, whom he often sent for to visit the child and report to him the state of its health, for the Herr himself never saw it. The nurse was strictly forbidden ever to take it out of the apartments appropriated to her; if she was obliged to leave them herself, she was ordered to leave the child in the cradle and lock the door after her. Except the doctor, nobody in Tausens ever saw the baby; even the servants were not allowed to go into the room where it was. The nurse was a very proud person; she never condescended to speak a word to any one except the doctor; she was always polite enough to him. They two understood one another extremely well; they would sometimes sit together for hours, while the master was in his room buried in his books. Once Trine saw him kiss her. One evening--it was in the beginning of the winter--the doctor came to the inn parlour and told the gentlemen who were sitting there over their wine that he had just come from the castle, where matters looked badly; the child was seriously ill. He could not yet say what was the matter with it, but he thought it had the smallpox. The gentlemen were greatly surprised at this intelligence. There had been one or two cases of smallpox in the neighbouring valleys, but none in Tausens or its immediate vicinity. It seemed impossible that the child should have taken it, living as he did in one part of the castle and seeing no one but his nurse and the doctor. But nevertheless it was the case, for a few days afterwards he proved to have the smallpox in its most malignant form, and within a week he was dead.