“He had seemed all-powerful-rich, a nobleman. That is easily explained.”

“But Lokenberg.”

“Well, we are in the Lokenwald. The name of the town is Lokenburg. Ah, I think I have it. There is a Count Lokenberg.”

My heart began to beat wildly. I cried: “Then take me to him. I am sure he must be Maximilian. I know he was not lying to me.”

Dr. Carlsberg rose; he led me out of the room and took me to a picture which was hanging on the wall. I had noticed it when I arrived but had not studied it particularly. It was a picture of a bearded man, more elderly than middle-aged, in uniform.

“It’s the head of our ruling house,” he said, ‘you will see his picture in many loyal households. Read the inscription. “

I read: “Carl VII; Carl Frederic Ludwig Maximilian, Duke of Rochenstein and Dorrenig, Count of Lokenberg.”

“Carl Frederic Ludwig Maximilian,” I said dully.

“Duke of Rochenstein and Count of Lokenberg!”

“The Lokenberg title is one of Duke Carl’s,” he said.

“Then why did he...

“You had looked at the picture.”

“I had never looked at it closely.”

“You looked at it without realizing you did. The names became fixed in your memory without your suspecting it and in your dream you selected one of them Maximilian and attached it to one of the titles you had seen on the inscription.”

I put my hands over my eyes. But he was so clear to me. I could see his beloved face, with the passionate, arrogant eyes that gleamed for me.

I would not believe that I had imagined that. But they had the tangible evidence; for the first time there was a doubt in my mind.

That terrible day seemed interminable. I sat listlessly with my hands on my lap thinking of him. My ears were strained for the sound of horses’ hoofs because I believed that I should hear them and that he would come into the house, his eyes alight with passion.

“What have they been trying to tell you, Lenchen?” he would demand, and turn on them in his fury; and they would cringe, as in the dream my cousins had appeared to-well, not exactly cringe, but they had been eager to placate him.

But this, according to them, had not been the case. They had never known each other. How could living people know a phantom? In the dream they had shown respect because that was what I expected them to do.

None of it, according to them, had existed.

But it had. I could feel his arms about me. I could remember so many passionate and tender moments.

I knew what Ilse was thinking: “Could I really believe that a count would suddenly decide to marry an unknown girl with such haste that the day after his decision a priest married them?”

Oh yes, they had reason on their side; and I had nothing but dreams. I could not produce my wedding-ring nor my marriage lines. If I had ever had them, where were they now?

Suddenly I thought: There’s the hunting lodge. I must go back there. I would fin de HUdegarde and Hans, and they would corroborate my story.

I was excited. If I could go back to the lodge Hildegarde would corroborate my story about the marriage. But if she did, that would mean that Cousin Ilse was lying, Ernst too, and the doctor. Why should they? What motive could they possibly have?

If I believed that, I must get away from them as soon as possible for they would be my enemies. They were trying to prove . what were they trying to prove?

Sometimes I thought: I’m going mad.

Were they trying to prove me mad? For what purpose? They were trying to save me, they said, from the mental collapse which I had been near when I came in, according to them, the victim of a savage attack in the forest.

Maximilian savage! Passionate he was and fierce at times but he loved me; for he had been tender; and he had said that desiring me as he did, he was determined that I should come to him willingly.

My thoughts were going round in circles. I must know the truth. I must try to be calm. I must face the facts. I must see the truth. Where was my ring? Where were my marriage lines? I could see them clearly now the plain gold band, the writing on the paper. But they could not be found.

I must know the truth. I had lost six days from my life and I must know what had happened to me, on the Night of the Seventh Moon. Did I meet the one man whom I could love, did I marry him, did I live for three ecstatic days in his hunting lodge as his wife? Or was I attacked by a monster who robbed me temporarily of my sanity?

I must know the truth.

I would go to the lodge. I would see Hildegarde and Hans and if they told me that I had never been there except on that one nighi when he had brought me there in the mist, I would have to believe them. Then I would see him. And I would then know whether he was indeed my husband.

At the very earliest moment I must go back to the lodge.

Ilse consulted Dr. Carlsberg and they all agreed that I must have my way.

How should we find this lodge? ” asked Ilse.

“It is not far from Liechtenkinn some eight miles, I think.

And you remember, Ilse, when you drove me over for my wedding . “

She looked at me blankly, sadly.

“Well, we’ll try to find it,” she said.

Ernst drove the horses; Ilse and I sat side by side; she had taken my hand and pressed it.

“We shall find the lodge you stayed at that night when you were lost in the mist. It will help you if you see the servant whom you saw then.”

I was thinking of Hildegarde. If she told me that I had never been there but once, I should have to believe her. I was afraid and my fear was a sign that I was beginning to waver. When there was so much evidence how could one go on believing in what they were telling me was a dream?

Is it possible? I asked myself. Can such things be done? I kept thinking of Dr. Carlsberg’s calm, intelligent and kindly face. What point would there be in their trying to confuse me? Yet on the other hand what did I know of Maximilian? He had never really told me anything about his life. I had no idea even where he lived. The more I thought of everything that happened, the more flimsy it seemed.

I could not remember the road. On the first occasion we had taken it when in my dream if dream it was had not noticed any landmarks.

That had been my wedding-day. I had been thinking of him and wondering when he would come back and had not noticed the road then either.

Ernst had driven to Liechtenkinn and when we reached the town with its gable-roofed houses clustered round the Pfarrkirche we were not far from the Damenstift.

I looked at the convent with some emotion, but it was not my schooldays that I remembered but that morning when Hildegarde had driven me back from the hunting lodge and how desolate I had been then because I feared I would never see him again. I was a hundred times more so now; but my spirits were rising. When we found the lodge I would see Hildegarde. She would tell them that I had stayed there three days and nights as Maximilian’s bride. But what of Ilse and Ernst? They could surely not be suffering from delusions?

We must find the lodge. I must speak to Hildegarde. And if she said that I had never been there . I felt cold at the thought. Then, I reasoned, I will have to accept what they tell me.

But not yet. I would find the lodge and insist on Hildegarde’s corroborating my story.

“Now,” said Ernst, ‘we have to find the way from here. You say it was some eight miles from the Damenstift. “

“Yes. I’m sure of that.”

“But in what direction?”

I pointed towards the south.

“I am sure that is the way I remember driving up to the Damenstift with Hildegarde from there.”

Ernst took the road, which was straight for some miles as I remembered it. We came to a fork and he hesitated.

“It’s a wild goose chase,” he said.

“No,” said Ilse, ‘we must find the lodge. It’s the only thing that will satisfy Helena. “

I was sure it was the left-hand fork. I seemed to remember the grey farmhouse down the road. We went on.

This was the road Schwester Maria had taken on that fateful afternoon.

We climbed and soon were in the pine forest. Here was the very spot where we had picnicked. There Schwester Maria had sat under the tree to doze. And I wandered off into a dream that had become a nightmare.

“Now the lodge you visited on that night could not be very far from here,” said Ernst.

Unfortunately I could not direct him. We took one turning and drove on for a while. We saw a man gathering wood. Ernst pulled up and asked him if be knew of a hunting lodge nearby.

The man paused, set down his bundle and scratched his head.

Yes, there was a lodge. A fine lodge, belonged to a lord or a count or some nobleman.

My spirits began to rise; my heart was beating fast.

Oh God, I prayed. Let this be it. Let me find Hildegarde. Let me come out of this nightmare.

Yes, he could tell us. If we were to go straight on to the end of the road, then take the path that climbed a bit and then a sharp veer to the left, there we would find a hunting lodge, i “They come here in the season,” he said.

“Gentlemen and ladies too.

There’s boar in the forest. Sometimes it’s stags. “

Ernst thanked him and we drove on in silence. I felt it took a long time to climb and I was impatient because we were forced to slacken our pace. And then we reached the top of the hill and I cried out in delight for there was the grove of pine trees that I remembered. The lodge was just beyond them.