e was not worth the
sword that was once belted on--by Leoline."

The tradition, dear Gertrude, proceeds to tell us that Otho, though
often menaced by the rude justice of the day for the death of the
Templar, defied and escaped the menace. On the very night of his
revenge a long and delirious illness seized him; the generous Warbeck
forgave, forgot all, save that he had been once consecrated by
Leoline's love. He tended him through his sickness, and when he
recovered, Otho was an altered man. He forswore the comrades he had
once courted, the revels he had once led. The halls of Sternfels were
desolate as those of Liebenstein. The only companion Otho sought was
Warbeck, and Warbeck bore with him. They had no topic in common, for
one subject Warbeck at least felt too deeply ever to trust himself to
speak; yet did a strange and secret sympathy re-unite them. They had
at least a common sorrow; often they were seen wandering together by
the solitary banks of the river, or amidst the woods, without
apparently interchanging word or sign. Otho died first, and still in
the prime of youth; and Warbeck was now left companionless. In vain
the imperial court wooed him to its pleasures; in vain the camp
proffered him the oblivion of renown. Ah! could he tear himself from a
spot where morning and night he could see afar, amidst the valley, the
roof that sheltered Leoline, and on which every copse, every turf,
reminded him of former days? His solitary life, his midnight vigils,
strange scrolls about his chamber, obtained him by degrees the repute
of cultivating the darker arts; and shunning, he became shunned by all.
But still it was sweet to hear from time to time of the increasing
sanctity of her in whom he had treasured up his last thoughts of earth.
She it was who healed the sick; she it was who relieved the poor, and
the superstition of that age brought pilgrims from afar to the altars
that she served. Many years afterwards, a band of lawless robbers, who
ever and anon broke from their mountain fastnesses to pillage and to
desolate the valleys of the Rhine,--who spared neither sex nor age;
neither tower nor hut; nor even the houses of God Himself,--laid waste
the territories round Bornhofen, and demanded treasure from the
convent. The abbess, of the bold lineage of Rudesheim, refused the
sacrilegious demand; the convent was stormed; its vassals resisted; the
robbers, inured to slaughter, won the day; already the gates