"I have come to guard you against your own abandoned nature, and I shall only leave this room when you do!" She sat down and faced him, palpitating, but immovable; and against such obstinacy the unhappy Rudolph gave up the contest in despair.
"But I shall not talk mit her; oh, Himmel, nein!" he said to himself; and in pursuance of this policy sat with his back turned to her while the shadows of evening gradually filled the room.

In vain did she address him: he neither answered nor moved.

Indeed, to discourage her still further, he even summoned up a forced gaiety of demeanor, and in a low rumble of discords sang to himself the least respectable songs he knew.
"His mind is certainly deranged," thought the Countess.

"I must not let him out of my sight.

Ah, poor Alicia!" But in time, when the dusk was thickening so fast that her son-in-law's broad back had already grown indistinct of outline, and no voice or footstep had come near their prison, her thoughts began to wander from his case to her own.