t to guide our steps, and to exercise the reason with which He has
endowed us. I have good ground to believe that any approach to
tenderness, on the part of the children, would widen the breach between
the fathers. And were such the case, the consummation of your plan would
give only a new and horrible feature to the present discord, by severing
the bond between child and parent. For, unless I am much deceived, the
lords of Hers and Stramen would turn away in disgust from children whom
they would consider, not only to have disobeyed them, but to have proved
faithless to their race. In this view, I can not suppose that heaven
indicates the path to final reconciliation through fresh dissension. The
hearts of the parents can not be softened in the way your highness
proposed, and that must be the first step in your plan. Besides, I have
little confidence in the agency of a human and selfish love to reach an
end that ought to be gained by purer motives. I have discovered, from
observation, what the power you spoke of will dare; I know its greatness
and its littleness."

"I must tax my ingenuity for a more auspicious scheme," resumed Rodolph
of Suabia, "for I begin to be distrustful of my first. I was a little
romantic, I confess; but it is thus we give the rein to some solitary
impulse of youth, lingering, like a firebrand, among our more matured
resolves."

They had ridden slowly, and were now on the brink of the ravine, three
miles from the Castle of Stramen. The waning moon and the bright
starlight showed them a white figure standing in the road, a few paces
from the mouth of the gorge.

"Who is that before us?" asked the noble.

"Bertha, the poor crazy woman, who swore to the presence of the Lord of
Hers at the spot where Robert de Stramen was found," whispered the
priest, and he advanced to where she stood.

"I heard your horse's hoofs, Father," she said, "and I came to get your
blessing."

"And you shall have it, Bertha," he answered, extending his hands over
her head. "Good night," he added, seeing that she did not move.

"Who is this you have brought us?" continued the woman, pointing to the
duke.

"That," replied Father Omehr, "is Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, and King of
Arles."

Bertha approached the duke, knelt down, and kissed his hand. She then
walked slowly up the ravine.

"A singular being," exclaimed the duke, as they gave their horses the
spur, for it was growing late. "I have not seen any one thus