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They repaired at once to the clergyman’s house, where they learned that the Countess and Albert Berlow lived in the shepherd’s lowly hut, some miles distant. “The Countess holds her husband as dead,” said the clergyman, “and no joy can now penetrate her heart. Her health has failed and it seems as if she would not last very long.”

Count Berlow asked how she could have received such incorrect news. The clergyman then brought out a package of newspapers, searched for one sheet, and laid it before the Count. He read that, on such a day, and at such an hour, Count Berlow, with twenty others, had been hung. “Strange it is,” said the Count, “either they forgot to cross my name from the list, or else they did not wish to, in the hope that in that way they would not be answerable for my escape.”

It pained the Count sorely that this false news had brought much suffering to the Countess, for death seemed almost to have enrolled her, too. The clergyman advised them to proceed slowly and cautiously, lest the joyful news of the Count’s return should be too great a shock to her.

Intending to follow the good clergyman’s advice, they continued their journey. Soon they reached the summit of a wooded hill, and from the distance they discerned the low hut with its flat, thatch-covered roof and smoking chimney. Richard then went hurriedly ahead.

Countess Berlow, dressed in black, sat knitting at the fireside, the light of which illuminated the room, which had been slowly filling with the shadows of the approaching twilight. Albert sat at her side, reading from her favorite volume. As she saw her faithful servant enter, she uttered a loud cry and her work fell from her hands. She hastened toward him, and with a thousand exclamations of joy and pain, she greeted him heartily, as if he were her dear father. Albert, too, was deeply affected.

Countess Berlow then pointed to a chair which Albert had drawn close to the fire, and said: “My good, true friend, be seated. So we see each, other again. Over the death of my dear husband let us draw a veil. The memory of it is too painful for me. But tell me, how is my daughter! Did she die, as the doctor said she might?”

Richard then explained that the doctor had diagnosed the case as more serious than it really was, in order at that time to hurry the mother’s flight; and that Marguerite had very shortly after recovered and had remained well ever since. The Countess was greatly pleased with this report, and her eyes gleamed with joy.

“But,” said she earnestly, and with a clouded brow, “why did you not bring her with you? Why did you not tear her from the unhappy fatherland where no hour of her life could be safe? How could you leave without her–you hard, cruel man? Why did you not–” she could say no more, for the door opened, and Marguerite rushed to her mother and embraced and kissed her as if nothing could ever again tear them asunder. Albert joined them and gladder tears were never shed than those which the Countess wept in her exceeding happiness.

Alas, the joy soon melted into yearning. “Oh, that my dear, true husband still lived,” said the Countess, as she looked to heaven, “for then my measure of joy would be full. Now, my dear children, you are poor and fatherless. The sight of you fills the heart of your oppressed mother with pain. For what can I, a poor, lonely widow, do for you?”

Then Richard interrupted the conversation with the glad news of the Count’s rescue. The Countess proved herself more self-controlled than Richard had anticipated, for the great joy of having seen her true servant, the greater joy of again clasping her daughter in her arms was for this woman the preparation for the greatest of joys–the joy of again seeing the husband whom she had mourned as dead.