At the same moment an outburst of angry
barking came from the dogs in the castle-yard, and other dogs could be
heard yapping and barking in the distance.
"What is disturbing the animals?" asked the Baron.
And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that had roused
the dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; heard a long-drawn
whining howl, rising and falling, seeming at one moment leagues away, at
others sweeping across the snow until it appeared to come from the foot
of the castle walls. All the starved, cold misery of a frozen world, all
the relentless hunger-fury of the wild, blended with other forlorn and
haunting melodies to which one could give no name, seemed concentrated in
that wailing cry.
"Wolves!" cried the Baron.
Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come from
everywhere.
"Hundreds of wolves," said the Hamburg merchant, who was a man of strong
imagination.
Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the Baroness
left her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless room where the
old governess lay watching the hours of the drying year slip by. In
spite of the biting cold of the winter night, the window stood open.
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