e night,
huddled in a corner by the altar.

Dawn is a laggard in Styria. She awoke before it was really light, and
crept out, munching a crust. The suburb was dead asleep, a little breeze
ruffled the poplars, and blew wrinkles on the town ditch. About and
about the walls she went, peering up at their ragged edge, at the huge
crumbling towers, at the storks on steep roofs. 'Eh, Lord God, here lies
in torment my lovely king!' she cried to herself. The keen breeze
freshened, the cloud-wrack went racing westward; it left the sky clean
and bare. Out of the east came the red sun, and struck fire upon the
dome of Saint Stanislas. Out of a high window then came the sound of a
man singing, a sharp strong voice, tremulous in the open notes. She held
her bosom as she heard--

Al entrada del tems clar, eya!
Per joja recomencar, eya!
Vol la regina mostrar
Qu'el' es si amoroza.

The sun kindled her lifted face, filled her wet eyes with light, and
glistened on her praying lips.

After that her duty was clear, as she conceived it. She dared not
attempt the tower: that would reveal her to him. But she could not leave
it. She must wait to learn the effect of her lord's letter, wait to see
the bearer of it: here she would wait, where she could press the stones
which bore up the stones pressed by Richard. So she did, crouching on
the earth by the wall, sheltered against the wind or the wet by either
side of a buttress, getting her food sparingly from the booths at the
gate, or of charity. The townsmen of Gratz, hoarse-voiced touzleheads
mostly, divined her to be an anchoress, a saint, or an unfortunate. She
was not of their country, for her hair was burnt yellow like a
Lombard's, and her eyes green; her face, tanned and searching, was like
a Hungarian's; they thought that she wove spells with her long hands. On
this account at first she was driven away on to the moors; but she
always returned to her place in the angle, and counted that a day gained
when she knew by Richard's strong singing that he yet lived. His songs
told her more than that: they were all of love, and if her name came not
in her image did. She knew by the mere pitch of his voice--who so
well?--when he was occupied with her and when not. Mostly he sang all
the morning from the moment the sun struck his window. Thus she judged
him a light sleeper. From noon to four there was no sound; surely then
he slept. He sang fitfully in the evening, not so sa