I slept little for the rest of that night; I kept straining my ears for the sound of footsteps. In the morning I decided to talk to Frau Graben.

“He was always a nervous child,” she said, beaming at me. In her sitting-room she kept a fire going most of the time and invariably had a kettle singing on it. She also kept what she called a stockpot and this provided a most appetizing-smelling soup.

She made tea for me. She always did this with a kind of smug delight as though to say, “See how I look after you?”

As we sat sipping the brew I was telling her about last night.

“It’s not the first time he’s walked in his sleep,” she said.

“It’s dangerous, I should think.”

“They say that people who walk in their sleep rarely hurt themselves.

There was one of the maids . so the story goes . who got out of one of the windows and walked along the parapet of the tower without coming to any harm. “

I shivered.

“No, ” Pritzi’s never come to any harm sleepwalking. They| say they step over anything that’s in their way. ” | ” But tie must be in a disturbed state to sleepwalk, don’t| you think? ” ^ ” Poor Fritzi, he’s the sensitive one. He feels things morel than the other two. ” :| ” Yesterday they took me to the Island of Graves. “

“Oh, that upset him. It always does. I don’t like them going there, but don’t like to stop it. After all, it’s right they shoulct| respect their dead mothers.” | “I think it’s a pity there has to be so much talk, about the| haunted room. The fact that it’s kept locked makes then al imagine all sorts of horrors behind those closed doors. Have^ the children ever been in the room?” No. ” ;^ ” It’s do wonder they’re overawed. The fact that Fritz made| his way up there shows that it’s on his mind and he connects! it in some way with his dead mother, because he was at the Island of Graves yesterday. “

He seems to have been better since you came. Learning English agrees with him. Or perhaps it’s you. He seems toj have taken a real fancy to you-and you to him. ” She gave me that rather sly look of hers.

“I reckon he’s your favourite among the children. I’m glad, for Fritzi’s sake. “

“I’m interested in him. He’s a clever boy.”

“I’ll agree with you.”

“I think he needs to be a member of a big uncomplicated family.”

“They say all children do.”

“I was wondering about that room. What is it like?”

“It’s just a room. It’s in the turret and so it’s circulari There are several windows, the lattice type that open out.|| That was why it was so easy for her to open one and get out.” ^ “And this room has been locked for years and years.” ^ “I don’t think so. The fortress wasn’`t used much before I Count Frederic brought the children here. Then there was this|| story about the haunting and I thought it better to keep the,;.| door locked.” || I hardly liked to go against her authority so I was silent but she pressed me.

“You think it’s wrong to keep it locked, then?” she went on.

“If it was treated just like an ordinary room people would forget the story,” I said.

“Such stories are best forgotten.

She shrugged her shoulders. Then she said: “Would you like me to leave it unlocked?”

“I have an idea it would be better. Then I’ll try to make light of it and perhaps go up there occasionally with the children.”

“Come with me now and I’ll unlock it.”

She kept her keys dangling from her belt like a good chat elaine she delighted in those keys. I suppose she regarded them as a sign of her authority.

I put down my cup and we went up to the turret-room together, she unlocked the door. I must confess I caught my breath as we entered, though why I could not imagine. There was nothing eerie about the room; the windows and its extremely elevated position made it very light. There were several beautiful rugs on the wooden floor, a table, a few chairs, a settee and a bureau. It looked as though it had been recently occupied.

“It’s not been used since,” said Frau Graben.

“It’s a beautiful room,” I said.

“You can use it if you like.”

I did not know that I wanted to do that. Approached only by the narrow spiral staircase which led to the turret, it was isolated and although it was easy to feel comfortable here during the day with a companion I remembered the uneasy feeling I had experienced last night when I had followed Fritz up here.

“Perhaps we can use it later,” I said. I imagined lessons up here; laborious conversations in English as to the beauty of the view, which was, as from all the windows in the fortress, magnificent.

“Which was the window from which the lady fell?” I asked.

She led me across the room.

“This one.”

She unlatched it and pushed it outwards. I leaned out. I was looking straight down the mountainside, for as in so many of the castles in these parts the mountain’s side had been used to form a wall. The drop was sheer. I could see right down to the valley.

Frau Graben moved closer to me.

“Silly girl she was!’ she whispered.

“She would have been dead before she reached the valley,” I said.

“Silly girl!’ she repeated.

“She could have had so much and she chose to kill herself.”

“She must have been very unhappy.”

“No reason to be. This castle was her home. All she had to do was keep in her place and she could have gone on here.

the mistress of Klocksburg.”

“Except when the owner called with his wife.”

“She should have had more sense. He was fond’ of her or he wouldn’`t have brought her here. He would have protected her. But she had to go and jump down there to her end.”

I said: “Is she in the Island of Graves?”

“She’d be there. There is one grave. It just says one name on the tombstone: ” Gerda. ” They say that’s the one. What a silly girl! It need never have been. It’s a lesson to girls, though.”

“To make sure they can trust their lovers.”

She smiled her fat comfortable smile and gave me a little nudge in the ribs.

“To accept what’s what, and make the best of it. If a count loves you enough to set you up in a castle, shouldn’`t that satisfy you?”

I said: “It didn’`t satisfy her.”

“Some have had more sense,” she said.

I turned away from the window. I wanted to stop thinking of that girl who had discovered her lover to have tricked her. I understood too well how she must have felt.

Frau Graben understood my feelings.

“Silly girl,” she insisted once more.

“Don’t go on feeling too sorry for her. You’d have had more sense in her place, I know.” Again that sly smile.

“It is a pleasant room. So you’d like it left unlocked and you’ll come up here now and then. I think you’re right. Yes, it’s a good notion.”

The room fascinated me. I was soon feeling an urge to go there alone.

I must admit that on the first occasion I went, I had to fight a lurking reluctance, but once I was there I experienced a certain excitement. It was a delightful room, perhaps the most attractive in the fortress. Even the view seemed more magnificent seen from these windows. I opened the one from which Gerda was alleged to have thrown herself. It opened with a little squeaking protest. It needs oiling, I thought, forcing myself to be practical.

How grand the ducal castle looked, a mighty impregnable fortress guarding the town. After frequent conversations with the boys who had on a very special occasion been allowed to visit the castle. I could make out the features which they had described. I could see the walls with their flanking turrets and the gate-tower fortress. There it stood, dating back in some parts to the eleventh century, guarding the town, ready to defend itself from marauders. What an uneasy life people must have led in those days when their greatest concern was to defend themselves. The boys had described the grandeur of the Rittersaal and the tapestries which adorned the walls; there were gardens with fountains and statues which their father had told them were like those of Versailles, for it had been the desire of every German princeling to follow the example of the great Sun King and, in his little domain, to see himself as the mighty French monarch.

I reminded the boys what had become of the monarchy of France.

Dagobert replied: “Oh yes, old Kratz told us all about that.”

Looking out across the sweep of the valley to the town and then up again to the royal castle, I could make out the outhouses of the Randhausburg where I presumed many of the outdoor servants lived; and there were the barracks too. Across the valley would come the trumpet call to wake them in the morning; I often heard it soon after dawn, and sometimes when the wind was in the right direction I would hear the band playing in the ducal gardens.

But as I sat in the room I wondered about the girl who had been so unhappy that she had decided to end her life. I imagined her beautiful, with long flaxen hair, like a girl in the fairy-tale picture-book my mother had brought with her from her home. I thought of her sitting at this window awaiting the arrival of her lover and then seeing that other woman -the wife, when she herself had believed herself to be married to him.

The despair, the wretchedness, the horror would have been overwhelming. I imagined her to have been strictly brought up. She would have believed herself to be dishonoured and see the only way out of her wretchedness was to end her life.

Sad Gerda! Perhaps when anyone was as unhappy as she must have been, he or she left behind them some aura of the past. Was that what people meant by haunting?