the wet foot-prints he had left on its pattern. "Go your way," she
continued, "and be more careful another time at what door you knock.
To-morrow I shall go to the Town Council and lay a complaint before
them about their endurance of the disorder and riot that goes on on the
island, exposing even the quietest householder in the neighbourhood to
an invasion of the watch by night on a charge of unlawful concealment!"

The sergeant would fain have broken out into further apologies, but an
imperative gesture of the lady, in the direction of the door, prevented
his uttering a word. He retired with head sunk low, and had scarcely
crossed the threshold, when Lisabethli shot the bolts after him, and
then sunk down on a seat, with a deep-drawn sigh, so much had the short
scene affected her.

"Remain here," said the mother after a pause. "Light a taper for me. I
will go upstairs."

"Dearest mother," pleaded the girl timidly, "would you not
rather-- Indeed you are too pale--it will distress you too much."

Frau Helena made no reply, but taking the light out of her hand, left
the room with face rigidly set, as though no worse thing could happen
to her. She was a sternly virtuous woman, a proud woman, who had always
felt too much self-respect to condescend to a lie. Now she had degraded
herself in her own estimation and in the presence of her child, and
this for the sake of a stranger who had no other claim to such a
sacrifice than that of having adjured her by her deepest grief.

The door through which she had passed remained half open, and
Lisabethli could hear with what slow and heavy steps she went up the
stairs, and how often she rested on the way, as though needing to
gather breath and courage for the painful entrance into her lost son's
room, which she had not visited for years.

"He is in a swoon," said old Valentin, meeting her on the threshold. "I
have bound up his wounds, but as I was putting a clean shirt on him he
fell lifeless from under my hands. I will fetch some cold water: there
is no danger--it is only faintness from loss of blood."

He hurried down stairs, and the lady entered the room.

There lay the stranger on the bed, his eyes closed, his mouth half open
from pain, and showing his white teeth. His light hair still dripping
with blood and rain, was pushed back from his pale brow. His cap and
silken doublet lay on the ground, as well as the blood-soaked shirt
which the old servant had replaced by a cle