HEIRESS AND TUTOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13948, 2 January 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

HEIRESS AND TUTOR.

COUNTESS WORTH £400,000 ELOPES

FROM HER FATHER'S CASTLE. Details of a sensational elopement wero made known in Vienna a few days ago, when it was announced that the Countess Maria Louise Harnoucourt, who is 19 years old and has a foitune in her own right of £400,000, had been missing - from her father's castle at Romaneska, Hungary, since the beginning of November. In the small hours of the morning of November 1 a closed carriage without lights stopped at the gate of Count Hamoucourt's castle. A young man in shooting dress got out and went towards the castle. A girl stole from a ground floor window, drove off rapidly towards Nagaybecskerek, the nearest town. At the toll-gates another carriage was waiting with, another man, his face concealed by a heavy overcoat, as occupant. The lady changed into this carriage, which was driven off to an unknown destination.

The man who accompanied the lady from the castle was the countess' music tutor, a former officer in the Prussian army, named Karlsten von Lichtenfeld, and it was at first thought that she had eloped with him. It now appears, however, that von Lichtenfeld merely acted on behalf of his friend, Count Anton Sigray, who last year asked Count Harnoucourt for the hand of- his daughter, but was refused, and who enlisted the services of his friend, who obtained the post of tutor to the young countess and arranged the elopement. Count Harnoucourt is furious, and is searching for Count Sigray and von Lichtenfeld, threatening that he will shoot them both without mercy.