And so she went on from morning to evening, nay,
till late into the night, sometimes till midnight, sometimes till the
dawn of the next day, up and down, up and down, between four walls, and
then on her knees again a-praying.
She never appeared in the dining-room; her meals were sent to her room.
She scarcely touched them, it was difficult to understand how she kept
body and soul together.
She only quitted her chamber to go to chapel. At such times she would
frequently meet domestics or strangers in the castle corridors, but she
looks at nobody and says not a word. She does not notice that they are
there, that they are amazed at her, that they greet her. No one has
heard her speak for a long time.
And therefore they think her mad. At first only the domestics whispered
this among themselves, then the villagers--and in a month's time it was
notorious through Transylvania that the youthful Baroness Hatszegi was
out of her mind.
Early one morning, as Henrietta was returning from chapel, there
suddenly appeared before her a ragged woman who must have been hidden in
some niche as the servants had not seen her or driven her out.
"Stop one moment, my lady," whispered the woman and Henrietta seemed to
hear in that whisper the voice of an old acquaintance, though she did
not recognize the face. It was half masked in a cloth and the little she
could see of it was disfigured by wounds and scars like the face of one
who had been badly injured by fire.
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