ABSTRACT
At the dawn of the morning D’Alonville hastened to satisfy his hostess for the shelter he had obtained under her roof, and to secure himself the same accommodation for the following night, if he should have occasion for it; and then, rather to indulge a melancholy imagination than with any other fixed purpose, he took his way to the castle of Rosenheim. The appearance of the building, dismantled, and in many parts so much injured as to threaten to fall with every wind, was even more dismal now that it was distinctly seen, than it had been when it seemed only black and broken ruins, by the dim light of the evening before. He entered what had once been the guardhouse, in the outward area, and passed through the court among piles of stones and immense beams half burnt, to the remains of the great hall, of which only the walls were now in being. D’Alonville made his way through it, and among piles of fallen bricks, towards that part of the building where he believed, from description (for he had never seen it himself) that the chapel had been; and that anti-room, whither, if it had still existed, his search would have been directed. Slowly and with difficulty he proceeded along to a door-way, which he found so choaked with stones and rubbish, that he meditated a moment whether he had better return to find a passage round another way, or endeavour with his hands to remove the impediments which prevented his passing by this, when he was surprised by a deep sigh, which seemed to come from the pile of ruins before him. He listened attentively, heard it a second time, and without farther reflection he forced away the stone around the door-way, and entered the space whence it seemed to proceed.
