rue knight's
neglect of duty, and, in the very week in which he was to be wedded, the
summons came for him to take the field.

The war was long, and it was three years before Roland left the camp.
When he reached the home of his mistress, he received a frightful
welcome. The castle was in ruins; its lord was slain; and Hilda,
deceived by reports of Roland's death, had taken the veil in the
neighbouring convent of Nonnenwerth!

Over the bright path of the young knight a dark and lasting shadow was
cast. His early hopes were shattered; the joy of his existence had fled;
his spirit bent beneath the weight of his evil fortune. But his faith
and constancy were beyond the control of Fate. Retiring to his castle of
Rolandseck, he made himself a seat within a window, from which he could
look down upon the island of Nonnenwerth and the convent that held
his beloved Hilda. Whether she heard of his return tradition does not
say; but the rumour of such constancy was perhaps wafted through the
nunnery walls. Be that as it may, it is chronicled that, after Roland's
watch had been for three years prolonged, he heard one evening the tones
of the bell that tolled for a passing soul, and next day the white
figures of the nuns were seen bearing a sister to her last home. It was
the funeral of Hilda.

[Illustration]

The isle of Nonnenwerth and its convent are still there opposite the
grim, gaunt, ruined gateway of Rolandseck, a brilliant jewel in an
antique setting; and, while neither the conventual buildings nor the
ruined chateau show any unusual architectural features, they are
characteristic of the feudal and religious architecture of the middle
ages.

Architects of to-day do not build with the same simplicity and grace
that they did of old, and these little out-of-the-way gems of
architecture are far more satisfying than are similar erections of
to-day.

XXV

COLOGNE AND ITS CATHEDRAL

No stranger ever yet entered Cologne without going straight to see its
mighty Gothic cathedral. Three things come to him forcibly,--the fact
that it was only completed in recent years, the great and undecided
question as to who may have been its architect, and the "Legend of the
Builder," as the story is known.

There are two legends of the cathedral and its builders which no visitor
will ever forget.

_The Architect of Cologne_

Mighty was Archbishop Conrad de Hochsteden, for he was lord over the
chief city of the Rhine, the