e wooden
gate swung slowly to behind him.

Abbot Otto stood by the table when Baron Conrad entered the high-vaulted
room from the farther end. The light from the oriel window behind the
old man shed broken rays of light upon him, and seemed to frame his thin
gray hairs with a golden glory. His white, delicate hand rested upon the
table beside him, and upon some sheets of parchment covered with rows of
ancient Greek writing which he had been engaged in deciphering.

Clank! clank! clank! Baron Conrad strode across the stone floor, and
then stopped short in front of the good old man.

"What dost thou seek here, my son?" said the Abbot.

"I seek sanctuary for my son and thy brother's grandson," said the Baron
Conrad, and he flung back the folds of his cloak and showed the face of
the sleeping babe.

For a while the Abbot said nothing, but stood gazing dreamily at
the baby. After a while he looked up. "And the child's mother," said
he--"what hath she to say at this?"

"She hath naught to say," said Baron Conrad, hoarsely, and then stopped
short in his speech. "She is dead," said he, at last, in a husky voice,
"and is with God's angels in paradise."

The Abbot looked intently in the Baron's face. "So!" said he, under his
breath, and then for the first time noticed how white and drawn was the
Baron's face. "Art sick thyself?" he asked.

"Ay," said the Baron, "I have come from death's door. But that is no
matter. Wilt thou take this little babe into sanctuary? My house is a
vile, rough place, and not fit for such as he, and his mother with the
blessed saints in heaven." And once more Conrad of Drachenhausen's face
began twitching with the pain of his thoughts.

"Yes," said the old man, gently, "he shall live here," and he stretched
out his hands and took the babe. "Would," said he, "that all the little
children in these dark times might be thus brought to the house of God,
and there learn mercy and peace, instead of rapine and war."

For a while he stood looking down in silence at the baby in his arms,
but with his mind far away upon other things. At last he roused himself
with a start. "And thou," said he to the Baron Conrad--"hath not thy
heart been chastened and softened by this? Surely thou wilt not go back
to thy old life of rapine and extortion?"

"Nay," said Baron Conrad, gruffly, "I will rob the city swine no longer,
for that was the last thing that my dear one asked of me."

The old Abbot's face lit up wi