"Bears the address of the nearest court in the district, shows all proofs, and is in the hands of Wild Robert, who fled with me on to the bank in the swamps. The ball hit me--it missed him. He promised me, even if it cost his life, to take the papers there. He knows the way through the morass, and if he had to hew down bush and tree with an axe to make a bridge for himself, the bailiffs have not caught him. Triumph! Chains and fetters for her--she has despised me, I, too, may despise her--thus I die--gladly!" And with these words, which were already interrupted by the rattle of approaching death, he bowed his head and passed away. As if out of his mind Blanden rushed into the night, ran along lonely roads, sprang over ditches and fences, hurried up and down--he felt as though he must fly from himself. His Giulia had deceived him, she was a criminal, his marriage invalid--the myrmidons of the law were already knocking at the door of his Castle! He repeated all this to himself mechanically, hopelessly, as though he were conning a lesson. It was impossible that all this could concern himself. After two hours of rapid flight through the night, which just began to yield to the dawn in the east, he returned to the inn, asked for ink and paper, and wrote to Giulia-- "Baluzzi is dead, he fell in a smuggler's fight, and dying confessed to me that you are his wife, and never were divorced from him! Shortly before his death he sent in an accusation against you. It cannot all be true, confirm the untruth with a few lines; they will find me with the proprietor of Opaczno." He obtained a messenger and despatched him to Kulmitten with his letter. It would have been impossible for him to return now, look into Giulia's eyes, hear from her own lips that she was the wife of that wretch. He gave some orders and money for Baluzzi's burial, and then drove to Opaczno. Fixedly he gazed at the morning, he saw none of the objects past which he drove, for him a heavy shadow lay upon all earthly things. She whom he had so proudly loved, seemed like a spectre to him, a bride of Corinth, a vampire, which had sucked his blood, his life. And yet--in the midst of his wrath at the deception, he was seized with fear, with pity for her, an inexpressible feeling of pain, that gnawed at his heart. He felt as if the mild god of Hindoostan, the old King's son, laid a hand upon his brow like a healing doctor, and whispered to him, "Have pity upon all creation!" CHAPTER XII. CONFESSIONS. "When you receive these lines," wrote Giulia, "I shall have left Kulmitten with Beate, and all traces of me, it is to be hoped, will be lost to you and to the world. I take nothing with me, save the remembrance of your goodness and love, and they shall support me in my forsakenness, and render it possible for me to endure life.