A CLOUD When the Osterno party reached home that same evening the starosta was waiting to see Steinmetz.

His news was such that Steinmetz sent for Paul, and the three men went together to the little room beyond the smoking-room in the old part of the castle.
"Well ?" said Paul, with the unconscious hauteur which made him a prince to these people.
The starosta spread out his hands.
"Your Excellency," he answered, "I am afraid." "Of what ?" The starosta shrugged his narrow shoulders in cringing deprecation.
"Excellency, I do not know.

There is something in the village--something in the whole country.

I know not what it is.

It is a feeling--one cannot see it, one cannot define it; but it is there, like the gleam of water at the bottom of a deep well.