One thing I knew was that all my life I should be haunted by him. I should never forget him.

I slept late next morning for I had only dozed fitfully throughout the night until dawn and then fallen into a deep slumber.

The sun was streaming into my room when I awoke and a great sadness descended on me. He had gone; he had explained as clearly as he could that since I could not be his companion of a night or so it was better that we should part.

I dressed lethargically and took breakfast on the little terrace at the back of the house but I had little appetite. I said I would go for a walk into the town during the morning and perhaps do a little shopping for Ilse.

When I returned to the house Ilse came to the door. There was a strange look on her face, as near to excitement as I had ever seen her.

She said, “There is a visitor to see you.”

“A visitor?”

“Count Lokenberg.”

I stared at her.

“Who on earth is that?”

“Go and see.” And she drew me towards the sitting-room, opened the door and pushed me forward. She shut the door on us so that we were alone, which seemed a strange thing for her to do. At home I should not have been left alone with a man-and here the codes of behaviour were as strict as those at home-perhaps more so.

But already I had seen him. He looked incongruous in this little room; he filled it with his presence.

“I’ve discarded my headdress,” he said.

“I hope you recognize me without it.”

“You Count Lokenberg! What are you doing here?”

“I am sure Aunt Caroline would be shocked at your manner of greeting a visitor, and you usually set such store on not shocking her.”

I felt the colour rising in my cheeks and I knew my eyes were sparkling, I was so happy.

“I can’t think where Ilse is,” I stammered.

“Obeying orders.” He took my hands.

“Lenchen,” he said, “I’ve been thinking of you all night. And you, have you been thinking of me?”

“Almost all night,” I admitted.

“I did not sleep till dawn.”

“You wanted to come with me, didn’`t you? You were calling out for me to abduct you and carry you away to the lodge. Confess it.”

“If it could have happened and then not have happened and could have been a sort of dream . “

“Impossible, my darling. But you were frightened, and that was the last thing I wanted. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything . but you must be equally eager and willing. It’s no use otherwise.

You must want to come to me as much as I want you to. “

“Is that one of your conditions?”

He nodded.

I said: “You didn’`t tell me who you were.”

“Siegfried sounded so much more to your taste.”

“And then Odin or Loke. And all the time you are this count.”

“A hero or a god is more impressive than a count.”

“But a count is more real.”

“And you prefer reality.”

“If there is going to be any permanency there must be reality.”

“My practical Lenchen, you know I’m obsessed by you.”

“Are you?”

“Your smile is radiant. You know I am as you are with me. I make no conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“You understand, Lenchen. If we had made our vows before a priest you would not have said ” Go back”. You would have said ” Go on”; and your eagerness would have equalled my own. Confess it. You don’t hide your feelings one bit. I know what you are thinking all the time. It’s there in your face your lovely young face. I know every detail.

I have dreamed of it every night and seen it every day since I found you in the forest. I love you, Lenchen, and you love me, and love like ours must be fulfilled. That is why we shall make our vows before the priest and then you will have no fears. You will be free to love. You will not see Aunt Caroline in your mind’s eye raising shocked hands; there will be no worrying about nuns or your cousin . nothing but us and that’s how I wish it to be. “

“You are asking me to marry you?”

“And what do you say?”

I did not have to answer. As I said, I betrayed myself.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“How can it be tomorrow? People don’t marry like that.”

Here they could, he told me. He would arrange it. If he commanded a priest to marry him that priest would obey him. It would be a simple ceremony. The priest would come into the house, either this or the hunting lodge. It had been done before. I could safely leave everything to him.

I was bemused. I could not get rid of the idea that I was in the company of a supernatural being. Perhaps that’s how it always is when one is in love. The loved one is unique, of course, but more than that, perfect. Everything had changed; the whole world seemed to be mad with joy; the birds sang more joyously; the grass was greener, the flowers more beautiful; the sun shone with a new warmth; and the moon, honey-coloured, lying a little on its side still almost full, wise and benign to lovers-seemed to be laughing because Helena Trant loved Count Lokenberg and all difficulties were to be swept aside by the priest before whom they were to make their vows to love and cherish until death parted them.

“But how is it possible?” I asked Ilse and Ernst when he dined with us that night.

“Surely marriages cannot be arranged like that?”

“Ours is a simple ceremony,” explained Ilse.

“It is often performed in the house of the bride or the bridegroom, if that is more convenient. The Count is a man of great power in these parts.”

A man of great power! I was fully aware of that. Ilse spoke his name with reverence.

“It seems so sudden,” I said, without any real protest and not really wanting to enquire too deeply into the ethics of the matter because I only wanted to be assured that the marriage could take place.

Ilse brought up hot milk when I was in bed; she seemed to think it necessary to cos set me a little. All I wanted was to be alone to think of this wonderful thing which had happened to me.

A message came from the Count in the early morning. The marriage was to be celebrated at the hunting lodge. He had the priest waiting there. Ilse and Ernst were to drive me over. It was a three hours’ drive but they made no difficulty about it; they seemed somewhat overawed by him. His name was not Siegfried but Maximilian, in fact. I had laughed when he told me.

“It sounds like one of the Holy Roman Emperors.”

’”” hy shouldn’`t it? ” he demanded.

“That’s what it is. Don’t you think I’m worthy to be named after such people? “

“It suits you admirably,” I told him.

“I could never call you Max. It doesn’`t fit you. Maximilian, you see, is rather like Siegfried in a way. It suggests a leader.”

“Maximilian!” I said his name to myself a hundred times that day. I kept telling Ilse that I seemed to be living in a dream; I was afraid that I would wake up to discover that I had imagined everything. Ilse laughed at me.

“You are bemused,” she said.

Then I told her how I had been lost in the mist and how Maximilian seemed like some sort of god, quite unreal, but I didn’`t go into details about that night in the forest and how the handle of my door had turned and the presence of Hildegarde had made all the difference.

I packed my case and we set out for the hunting lodge. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when we reached it. There was a grove of firs quite near which I remembered vaguely noticing on the morning when Hildegarde had taken me back to the Damenstift. We came to the two stone posts on either side of the gate; and as we drove through them Fsaw Maximilian on the steps under the porch.

He came towards us hurriedly: and my heart leaped with joy at the sight of him, as I believed it always would at the sight of him for the rest of my life.

“I expected you half an hour before,” he said reproachfully.

Ilse replied meekly that we had left in good time.

He took my hand and his eyes gleamed as they swept over me; I was so happy because of his impatience.

What happened next was like a dream, which made it easy afterwards for me to wonder whether that was what it really had been.

The hall had been arranged to look rather like a chapel and waiting there was a man whose black garb proclaimed him to be a priest.

“There is no point in delay,” said Maximilian.

I said I would like to comb my hair and change my dress before I was married.

Maximilian looked at me in tender exasperation but I was allowed my own way and soon Hildegarde was taking me up to the room I remembered so well where I had spent that night so long ago.

I said: “Hildegarde, how good it is to see you again.”

She smiled but she did not appear to be very happy about our meeting. She had a habit of shaking her head so that she looked like some prophet of evil. At least that was the impression I had. I was too excited to think much about her, though. There I was in that room with the window looking out on the pine trees, and it seemed filled with a faintly resinous odour which I never failed to associate with that room in the hunting lodge, and that feeling of almost unbearable excitement which I experienced on that other occasion and which I was to find could only be inspired by one man in the whole of life.

Alone I washed and took a dress from my bag. It was slightly crumpled, but it was my best dress; it was of a green silky material with a monk’s collar of velvet of a slightly darker shade of green. Not exactly a wedding dress but more fitting for the occasion than the blouse and skirt in which I had travelled.