hich he wore around his waist,
threw it over my shoulders. Then he put this ring on my finger and
galloped off, crying he must not miss the stand. This much you know,
Albert of Hers, but you do not know what followed. Was it not as I have
said?"

The noble nodded.

"O God, strengthen me to reveal all!" continued the now agitated woman.
"I began to walk down the ravine, when I met Albert of the Thorn. I
showed him my presents, and we sat down at the foot of a pile of steep
rocks, beside a little spring. Albert was arranging the scarf about my
neck, when Sir Robert of Stramen suddenly stood before us. His face was
pale with rage, and his lips were all foaming. I screamed at his awful
appearance. I knew well that he hated my betrothed, and had threatened
his life if he married me. He snatched the scarf from my neck, and
shaking it at me, said: 'I know very well from whom this came!' Then,
turning upon Albert, he cried: 'And for you, who pretend to love her, to
connive at his guilt! You shall pay for your baseness with your life!'
He stopped here, as if rage had choked him, and drew his sword. Albert
sprang quickly up the ledge of rocks, and Sir Robert followed. I saw
Albert stoop, pick up a large fragment of rock, and hurl it--I saw Sir
Robert fall, and then I grew sick and dizzy, and fainted. When I
recovered, Albert was watching me, trembling and livid. I looked around,
and there was Sir Robert, stretched out stiff and still and bloody. He
had worn nothing but a light cap on his head, and the stone had made a
fearful dent in his temple. I knelt beside him, and prayed, and chafed
his hands, and brought water from the spring and poured it upon his
face. I hoped he would come to life, even if he would only revive to
kill me. It was all in vain. He grew cold: he was dead. Again I looked
at Albert--he was shaking like a leaf. 'Bertha,' he said, 'I am a lost
man! When Sir Sandrit knows this, I cease to live.' I saw his danger,
which did not until then occur to me, and I lost my concern for the dead
in my fears for him. I loved him better than anything in the world, and
the devil, who knew my heart, suggested a scheme for his preservation.
The scarf of the Lord of Hers, which bore some family device, was
grasped in the dead man's hand, and I saw at once how strongly that
circumstance implied the noble's guilt. I concealed the ring he had
given me in my pocket. 'Come!' I said to Albert, 'let us take the body
to Sir Sandrit, an