Ernst drove on; we were in the grove now because the road ran through them-just as I remembered. There were the two stone posts, beyond them were the grey walls which I knew so well.

I cried out in joy.

“We’re here.”

I wanted to leap out of the carriage but Ilse restrained me.

“Be careful, Helena,” she said.

“You’re not strong yet.”

Ernst fixed the reins to the post and we alighted.

I ran forward. There was a strange silence everywhere. I noticed that the stables had disappeared. They should have been to the left of the house. It was from them that Hans had come out to take our horses when we had been riding. I could not understand. It seemed different.

Everything was different. This was the lodge; those were the stone posts. Those were the walls. There was no door. I could see through into emptiness.

I was looking at the shell of the hunting lodge where until that moment I had been certain that I had been married to Maximilian.

Ilse was beside me, her arm slipped through mine, her eyes compassionate.

“Oh, Helena,” she said, ‘come away. “

But I wouldn’`t. I ran through that gap where the door had been. I stood inside those blackened walls. There was nothing there-nothing of the room where we had dined; the bedroom we had shared, my little room where I had spent the first night, the blue room which contained another woman’s clothes, the hall with its stuffed heads of animals and weapons hanging on the wall Hildegarde and Hans, all gone.

“This is the place,” I cried.

“Helena, my poor child,” said Ilse.

“But what has happened to it?” I demanded.

“It looks as though it has been burned out at some time. Come away now. Come home. You have had enough.”

I didn’`t want to go. I wanted to stand there in that ruin and think of it all. How could I remember a dream so vividly? It wasn’`t possible. I could not bear my misery, because every minute they were convincing me that what had happened had indeed been unreal.

Ilse led me back to the carriage.

We drove home in silence. There was nothing more I could think of. The evidence against the fact that I had married was overwhelming.

Back at the house I sank into a deep depression. Ilse tried to interest me in embroidery and cooking. I was listless. Sometimes I would let myself dream that Maximilian came back for me; but I was afraid to indulge in too many dreams for fear I should again stray into a dangerous realm of fancy.

Not only was I desolate and melancholy while my heart called out for my husband, but I was afraid of myself. There was a great deal of talk about the powers of suggestion and hypnotism. The fame of the Pox sisters had spread from America to England some ten years ago; they believed that it was possible to communicate with the dead; and although the world was full of sceptics many people were convinced that it was becoming increasingly easier to accept what some time ago would have appeared to be completely incredible, and that certain people were possessed of knowledge and the power to reveal undreamed of secrets. Dr. Carlsberg was clearly experimenting with new forms of treatment; and because of my circumstances I was a likely subject for his tests.

I no longer felt that I was uncomplicated Helena Trant. I had had, according to the evidence, a frightening experience, which many believed was the worst which could befall an innocent young girl, or I had enjoyed the exultation which the perfect union between two people can bring. I was not sure which. If they were right, I had lost six days of my life and those were the days during which I had known a state of existence which I could never hope to experience again; I had loved with a deep abiding passion a man whom they told me was a phantom. I could never love again in that way. I had therefore suffered an irreparable loss.

I felt I was a stranger to myself. I often looked searchingly in the mirror and felt I did not know the face which was reflected there. How could I help it when I was not at all sure whether I myself was not in the plot to blot out the fearful memory of a terrifying experience by replacing it with a dream of perfection?

Sometimes I awoke in the night startled because I had dreamed that I was being pursued through the forest by a monster who had disguised himself as Maximilian. I thought in that waking moment-Was that how it happened? We had gone into the forest. There was a moment when he had hesitated. Was that the moment when I started to dream?

I was afraid. I watched everything that I did spontaneously. I had a fear that I was becoming unbalanced. Luisa, my mother’s cousin-of whom my mother had never spoken-had gone mad. I was frightened.

I clung to Ilse. There was something so kind and compassionate about her. The manner in which she used to take care of me, to take my mind off my tragedy, was touching. I could see so clearly what she was trying to do.

The days began to pass; I was listless, unless at any time I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs; then I would start up expectantly, for I could not rid myself of the hope that one day Maximilian would come to claim me.

Dr. Carlsberg came every day to visit me. His care for me was wonderful.

I think it must have been about a week after I awoke to the nightmare that Ilse told me they would have to leave Lokenburg. Ernst’s holiday had come to an end. He must return to Denkendorf. He had his work there.

I used to listen idly to their conversation. There had been some plot to replace Duke Carl by his brother Ludwig. They chattered excitedly about it and were clearly delighted that it had gone against Ludwig.

They were very loyal to the Duke.

So shortly after that we said goodbye to Dr. Carlsberg, who assured me that I would gradually regain my old spirits if I could stop brooding on what had happened and learn to accept it as a regrettable accident.

No good could be done by brooding. In fact only harm could come of it.

I said to Ilse as we left, “What if Maximilian should come here to look for me? He said he would come to the lodge but he wanted me to go to you so he will know.

I stopped. She looked so sad.

Then she said: “We have taken the house before. The owner knows we come from Denkendorf. If any people come looking for us they could be told where we had gone.”

I was sorry to hurt her by this proof that I believed she bad lied to me, but she understood.

She knew that I still had to cling to the dream.

Denkendorf was like so many of the little towns I had seen in this part of the world. The centre of the town had its shops under the arcades; the pavements were cobbled, and the aspect medieval; because this was a spa and people came to take the waters there were several inns; and the shops were well stocked, the streets more lively than those of Lokenburg. We were near a river and it was possible to walk out to its bank and see there, perched on the opposite bank, the ruin of a castle in pale silver-grey stone.

I realized when we arrived there that I had grown a little away from my nightmare; I had begun to accept, which I had believed I never could. It was possible, I knew, for people to be drugged to such an extent that they missed days of their lives. It was possible to evoke dreams that seem real. How could I doubt that good kind Ilse was speaking the truth? I should have known that what I had imagined was too wildly and fantastically wonderful to be true.

We had only just settled in to Denkendorf when Ernst left us to go to Rochenburg, the capital city of the Duchy of Rochenstein. This crisis in the affairs of the country meant that in spite of his indifferent health he was recalled to his post in the government, so Ilse and I were alone together.

We grew very close. She would not let me go out without her and each morning we would go into the market to shop. Sometimes she introduced me as her English cousin and I would join in the conversation which ensued somewhat automatically. How did I like the country? How long was I going to stay with my cousin? To these I always replied that I found the country interesting and that I was not sure how long I would stay. I could see they thought me a little dull, perhaps strange. When I thought of what I should have been like a few weeks ago I was appalled. I would never again be that carefree impulsive girl who had attracted Maximilian . But how could she have captivated a phantom? In the beginning, I reasoned with myself, he was attracted by me. There was no harm in thinking of that incident which had begun in the mist. That had actually happened.

I wrote to the aunts and in time received letters from them.

By that time I had been in Denkendorf for six weeks. Each day was much the same; Ernst paid occasional visits; I learned to embroider and do tapestry work-very fine petit-point on which we could only work by day. In the evenings we did ordinary sewing or embroidery. I read a great many books on German history and I was particularly interested in the ancestors of Carl, Duke of Rochenstein. It was astonishing how quickly the time was passing.

Aunt Caroline wrote of the affairs which concerned her; how much strawberry jam she had put down; how many jars of black currant jelly; she implied that she expected me soon to be coming home. She could not understand why I had wanted to go gadding about in the first place. Aunt Matilda wrote of the strange wheezing Aunt Caroline had developed. She got quite breathless; and there was mention of Mr. Clees’s solitary kidney which had to do the work of two; and Amelia Clees was looking a little pale; Aunt Matilda hoped she was not going into a decline as, she had gathered, her mother had. There was a great deal about Mr. Clees in Aunt Matilda’s letter. It seemed that a man who had had a wife in a decline and himself possessed only one kidney was very attractive. I heard from Mrs. Greville too. They missed me and wondered when I planned to come back. She and Mr. Greville might manage a trip out so that I could come back with them.