uch graver and wiser than others of his green youth, finds
no one to open his eyes, then he may--I do not say for certain, but
peradventure, for why should I frighten you all?--he may, I say, hunt
high and low to all eternity. The late Junker Herdegen...."

And again I felt that sharp pang through my heart, and I cried in the
anguish of my soul: "The late Junker--late Junker, did you say? How came
you to use such a word? By all you hold sacred, Kubbeling, torture me no
more. Confess all you know concerning my elder brother!"

This I cried out with a quaking voice, but all too soon was I speechless
again, for once more that dreadful "Gone!" fell upon my ear from
Uhlwurm's lips.

I hid my face in my hands, and sitting thus in darkness, I heard the
bird-dealer, in real grief now, repeat Uhlwurm's word of ill-omen:
"Gone." Yet he presently added in a tone of comfort: "But only
perchance--not for certain, Mistress Margery."

Albeit he was now willing to tell more, he was stopped in the very act.
Neither he nor I had seen that some one had silently entered the hall
with my Uncle Christian and Master Ulsenius, had come close to us, and
had heard Uhlwurm's and Kubbeling's last words. This was Ann; and, as
she answered to the Brunswicker "I would you were in the right with that
'perchance'. How gladly would I believe it!" I took my hands down from
my face, and behold she stood before me in all her beauty, but in deep
mourning black, and was now, as I was, an unwedded widow.

I ran to meet her, and now, as she clung to me first and then to my
aunt, she was so moving a spectacle that even Uhlwurm wiped his wet
cheeks with his finger-cloth. All were now silent, but Young Kubbeling
ceased not from wiping the sweat of anguish from his brow, till at last
he cried: "'Perchance' was what I said, and 'perchance' it still shall
be; aye, by the help of the Saints, and I will prove it...."

At this Ann uplifted her bead, which she had hidden in my aunt's bosom,
and Cousin Maud let drop her arms in which she held me clasped. The
learned Master Windecke made haste to depart, as he could ill-endure
such touching matters, while Uncle Conrad enquired of Ann what she had
heard of Herdegen's end.

Hereupon she told us all in a low voice that yestereve she had received
a letter from my lord Cardinal, announcing that he had evil tidings from
the Christian brethren in Egypt. She was to hold herself ready for the
worst, inasmuch as, if they wer