shut my eyes, and when presently I opened
them once more, close before me, as it were within reach, behold the
yellow headstone with black letters thereon, as in my dream; and albeit
I closed my eyes again the name "Hans Haller" was yet there and the
letters faded not, nay, but waxed greater and came nigher, and meseemed
were as a row of gaping werewolves.

I held fast by the tall back of my heavy chair to save me from falling,
on my knees; but a firm hand thrust it aside, and I was clasped in a
pair of old yet strong arms to a faithful heart, and when I heard Cousin
Maud's voice in mine ear, though half-choked with tears, crying: "My
poor, poor, dear good Margery!" meseemed that somewhat melted in my
heart and gushed up to my eyes; and albeit none had told me, yet knew I
of a certainty that I was a widow or ever I was a wife, and that Cousin
Maud's tears and my own were shed, not for Herdegen, but for him, for
him....

And behold, face to face with me, who was this? Ursula stood before me,
her blue eyes drowned in tears--tears for me, telling me that my woe was
deep enough and bitter enough to grieve even the ruthless heart of my
enemy.

CHAPTER IV.

The storm had cleared the air once more. How fair smiled the blue sky,
how bright shone the sun, day after day and from morning till night; but
meseemed its splendor did but mock me, and many a time I deemed that
my heart's sorrow would be easier to bear with patience if it might but
rain, and rain and rain for ever. Yea, and a grey gloomy day would have
brought rest to eyes weary with weeping. And in my sick heart all was
dark indeed, albeit I had not been slow to learn how this terror had
come about.

That was all the tidings I had craved; as to how life should fare
henceforth I cared no more, but let what might befall without a wish or
a will. Sorrow was to me the end and intent of life. I spurned not my
grief, but rather cherished and fed it, as it were a precious child, and
nought pleased me so well as to cling to that alone.

Howbeit I seldom had the good hap to be left to humor this craving. I
was wroth with the hard and bitter world for its cruelty; yet it was in
truth that very world, and its pitiless call to duty, which at that
time rescued me from worse things. Verily I now bless each one who then
strove to rouse me from my selfish and gloomy sorrow, from the tailor
who cut my mourning weed to Ann, whose loving comfort even was less
dear to me than