ilbert had been wounded, Father Omehr
hastened to support him.

"It is but a trifle, Father," said the youth, anxious to relieve the
evident uneasiness of the old man.

"May God will that it be so!" replied the priest, eagerly removing the
hunting-shirt, and examining the path of the knife. After which, having
carefully replaced the garment, he turned to the serfs who yet lingered
there, inquiring, in a voice of deep indignation:

"Who has dared to do this? Who has been impious enough to draw blood
during the truce of God, upon the threshold of God's sacred temple?"

One of them hastened to reply:

"It was Alber of the Thorn's widow, crazy Bertha. God preserve us from
such a deed, at such a time, and in such a place!"

"But could you not have prevented it?" continued the priest, eyeing the
man until he quailed.

Gilbert interposed.

"They are not to blame, Father," he said; "I did not expect the attack
myself, and none else could have prevented the blow."

"It bleeds much," pursued the priest, again examining the wound.

Gilbert made a step forward, but Father Omehr detained him, and
reluctantly the youth allowed himself to be supported by two of the
serfs of Stramen to the bed he had occupied during the night.

Margaret de Stramen, in the spirit of the age, had gone to the cell,
after discovering the nature of the young man's injury, and taken from
the basket she had brought some salves and stringents with which she
stood ready at the door. She washed the wound and dressed it with the
tenderness peculiar to woman, and received Gilbert's thanks with a
slight inclination of the head. Having completed her task, she drew the
priest aside, and, looking up into his face with evident emotion, said:

"Could there have been poison on the knife?"

Though spoken in a whisper, the youth must have heard it, for he smiled
at first, and the next moment became pale as death. Father Omehr noticed
the change upon his features, and replied loud enough to be overheard:

"No, no! it cannot be. Some momentary paroxysm prompted the deed; there
could have been no preparation, no predetermination."

"It is not for his sake," continued Margaret, in a still lower tone, and
withdrawing farther from the bed; "not for his sake I fear an
unfortunate result; but for our own. I know that it is Gilbert de Hers
who lies there, and I have drunk too deeply in the prejudices of our
family to repine at any calamity that may befall him. But