ned the name of
Navarrete and how he had come from Madrid and Lepanto to the Netherlands.
Then he went to rest, but he could not sleep.

He had found his mother again. He now possessed the best gift Ruth had
asked him to beseech of the "word." The soldier's sweetheart, the
faithless wife, the companion of his rival, whom only yesterday he had
avoided, the fortune-teller, the camp-sibyl, was the woman who had given
him birth. He, who thought he had preserved his honor stainless, whose
hand grasped the sword if another looked askance at him, was the child of
one, at whom every respectable woman had the right to point her finger.
All these thoughts darted through his brain; but strangely enough, they
melted like morning mists when the sun rises, before the feeling of joy
that he had his mother again.

Her image did not rise before his memory in Zorrillo's tent, but framed
by balsams and wall-flowers. His vivid imagination made her twenty years
younger, and how beautiful she still was, how winningly she could glance
and smile. Every appreciative word, all the praises of the sibyl's
beauty, good sense and kindness, which he had heard in the camp, came
back freshly to his mind, and he would fain have started up to throw
himself on her bosom, call her his mother, hear her give him all the
sweet, pet names, which sounded so tender from her lips, and feel the
caress of her soft hands. How rich the solitary man felt, how
surpassingly rich! He had been entirely alone, deserted even by his
mother! Now he was so no longer, and pleasant dreams blended with his
ambitious plans, like golden threads in dark cloth.

When power was once his, he would build her a beautiful, cosy nest with
his share of the booty. She must leave Zorrillo, leave him to-morrow. The
little nest should belong to her and him alone, entirely alone, and when
his soul longed for peace, love, and quiet, he would rest there with her,
recall with her the days of his childhood, cherish and care for her, make
her forget all her sins and sufferings, and enjoy to the full the
happiness of having her again, calling a loving mother's heart his own.

At every breath he drew he felt freer and gayer. Suddenly there was a
rustling at the tent-door. He seized his two-handed sword, but did not
raise it, for a beloved voice he recognized, called softly: "Ulrich,
Ulrich, it is I!"

He started up, hastily threw on his doublet, rushed towards her, clasped
her in his arms, and let