conquer the violence of his wild heart, and for herself,
that she might not grow to fear him more than she loved him. In these
days of her trial, and in the worse days to come, a great consolation
it was to her to kneel in the silent chapel and pour out her
unhappiness to her whose heart had been pierced by seven swords of
sorrow.

Time went by, and when no little angel came from the knees of God to
lighten her burden and to restrain with its small hands the headlong
passion of her husband, the Count was filled with bitterness of spirit
as he looked forward to a childless old age, and reflected that all the
fruitful straths of the Toggenburg, and the valleys and townships,
would pass away to some kinsman, and no son of his would there be to
prolong the memory of his name and greatness. When this gloomy dread
had taken possession of him, he would turn savagely on the Countess in
his fits of fury, and cry aloud: "Out of my sight! For all thy
meekness and thy praying and thy almsgiving, God knows it was an ill
day when I set eyes on that fair face of thine!" Yet this was in no
way his true thought, for in spite of his lower nature the Count loved
her, but it is ever the curse of anger in a man that it shall wreak
itself most despitefully on his nearest and best. And Itha, who had
learned this in the school of long-suffering, answered never a word,
but only prayed the more constantly and imploringly.

In the train of the Countess there were two pages, Dominic, an Italian,
whom she misliked for his vanity and boldness, and Cuno, a comely
Swabian lad, who had followed her from her father's house. Most
frequently when she went to Our Lady in the Meadow she dismissed
Dominic and bade Cuno attend her, for in her distress it was some crumb
of comfort to see the face of a fellow-countryman, and to speak to him
of Kirchberg and the dear land she had left. But Dominic, seeing that
the Swabian was preferred, hated Cuno, and bore the lady scant
goodwill, and in a little set his brain to some device by which he
might vent his malice on both. This was no difficult task, for the
Count was as prone to jealousy as he was quick to wrath, and with
crafty hint and wily jest and seemingly aimless chatter the Italian
sowed the seeds of suspicion and watchfulness in his master's mind.

Consider, then, if these were not days of heartbreak for this lady,
still so young and so beautiful, so unlovingly entreated, and so far
away from th