"
After these words Mrs. Maxa took her leave and rapidly walked down the
mountain.
She unexpectedly entered Apollonie's garden while the latter was working
there, and immediately described to her the terrible state of things at
the castle. She had always believed that the Baron would find it
home-like and furnished, and now everything was gone, and he had not even
a bed to sleep in, but was obliged to spend both day and night in his
chair.
Apollonie had been wringing her hands all the time and broke out at last
bitterly, "How could I have foreseen that? Oh, what a Turk, what a
savage, what an old heathen that miserable Trius is," she sobbed, full of
rage and grief. "I understand now why he never answered my questions. I
have asked him many a time if he had taken out the right bed and was
using the things belonging to it which were marked with a blue crown in
the corners. He only used to grin at me and never said a word. He never
even looked for them and calmly let my poor sick Baron suffer. Nothing
is missing, not even the tiniest picture or trifle, and he had to come
back to a terrible waste! All my sleepless nights were not in vain, but I
had not the slightest idea that it could be as bad as that. The worst of
it is that it is my fault.
"Yes, it really is all my fault, Mrs. Maxa," and Apollonie went on to
tell how this had come about. Baron Bruno had only heard the news of his
brother's marriage and his mother's death when he returned the first time
years ago.
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