lady whose
faithlessness had first induced him to seek rest and forgetfulness in the
peace of the cloister, and led him to despise her whole sex.

The horsewoman must be a granddaughter, daughter, or niece of the woman
who had so basely betrayed him. How much she resembled the traitress, but
she did not understand how to hide her real nature as well; her faded
features wore a somewhat malicious expression. The resentment which he
thought he had conquered again awoke. He would have liked to rush after
her and call her to her face----. Yet what would that avail? How was she
to blame for the treachery of another person, whom perhaps she did not
even know?

Yet he longed to follow her.

His fevered blood urged him on, but his exhausted, aching limbs refused
to serve him. One more violent effort, and sparks flashed before his
eyes, his lips were wet with blood, and he sank gasping on the ground.

After some time he succeeded in dragging himself to the side of the road,
where he lay until a Nuremberg carrier, passing with his team of four
horses, lifted him, with the help of his servant, into his cart and took
him on.

At Schweinau the jolting of the vehicle became unendurable to the
sufferer, and the carrier willingly fulfilled his wish to be taken to the
hospital where mangled criminals, tortured by the rack, were nursed.

There, however, they instantly perceived that his place was not in this
house dedicated to criminal misfortune, and the kind Beguines of
Schweinau took charge of him.

On the way the old monk suffered severely in both soul and body. It
seemed like treason, like a rejection of his pure and pious purposes,
that Heaven itself barred the path along which he was wearily wandering
to win it a soul.

CHAPTER VI.

The entombment of the magnificent coffin of Frau Maria Ortlieb under the
pavement of the family chapel was over. The little group of sympathising
friends had left the church. Only the widower and his daughters remained,
and when he knew that he could no longer be seen by the few who still
lingered in the house of God, he clasped the two girls to his heart with
a suppressed sob.

Never had he experienced such deep sorrow, such anguish of soul. He had
not even been permitted to take leave of his beloved companion with
unmixed grief; fierce resentment had mingled with his trouble.

To remain alone in the house with his daughters after the burial and
answer their questions seemed to him