f fear. At length the old chief died, and
Leoline was left utterly alone.

One evening as she sat with her maidens in the hall, the ringing of a
steed's hoofs was heard in the outer court; a horn sounded, the heavy
gates were unbarred, and a knight of a stately mien and covered with
the mantle of the Cross entered the hall; he stopped for one moment at
the entrance, as if overpowered by his emotion; in the next he had
clasped Leoline to his breast.

"Dost thou not recognize thy cousin Warbeck?" He doffed his casque,
and she saw that majestic brow which, unlike Otho's, had never changed
or been clouded in its aspect to her.

"The war is suspended for the present," said he. "I learned my
father's death, and I have returned home to hang up my banner in the
hall and spend my days in peace."

Time and the life of camps had worked their change upon Warbeck's face;
the fair hair, deepened in its shade, was worn from the temples, and
disclosed one scar that rather aided the beauty of a countenance that
had always something high and martial in its character: but the calm it
had once worn had settled down into sadness; he conversed more rarely
than before, and though he smiled not less often, nor less kindly, the
smile had more of thought, and the kindness had forgot its passion. He
had apparently conquered a love that was so early crossed, but not that
fidelity of remembrance which made Leoline dearer to him than all
others, and forbade him to replace the images he had graven upon his
soul.

The orphan's lips trembled with the name of Otho, but a certain
recollection stifled even her anxiety. Warbeck hastened to forestall
her questions.

"Otho was well," he said, "and sojourning at Constantinople; he had
lingered there so long that the crusade had terminated without his aid:
doubtless now he would speedily return;--a month, a week, nay, a day
might restore him to her side."

Leoline was inexpressibly consoled, yet something remained untold.
Why, so eager for the strife of the sacred tomb had he thus tarried at
Constantinople? She wondered, she wearied conjecture, but she did not
dare to search farther.

The generous Warbeck concealed from her that Otho led a life of the
most reckless and indolent dissipations wasting his wealth in the
pleasures of the Greek court, and only occupying his ambition with the
wild schemes of founding a principality in those foreign climes, which
the enterprises of the Norman adventur