So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up.

There on my left was the sitting-room.

It had been searched high and low, escritoires rudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen, empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchers had left them.
Then above was the little room where Helene used to sleep.

Here the wrack was indescribable--every hidingplace rifled, her pretty worked bedquilt lying across the doorway trampled and soiled, her dainty white clothing, some she had worn at Plassenburg, and even the tiny dresses of her childhood, all torn and confused together.

And in the midst, what affected me more than everything else, a tiny puppet of wood my father had hewn her with his knife, and which she had dressed as a queen with red ribbons and crown of tinsel--ah, so long ago--and in such happy days.
"Father!" I called, loudly.