hall that the men might the
better enjoy the heady wine and freer speech, we maidens were bound to
follow her duteously; but Herdegen signed to me to come apart with him,
and now I hoped he would open his heart to me and treat me as he had been
wont, as my true and dear brother, whose heart had ever been on the tip
of his tongue. Far from it; he spoke nought but flattery, as "how fair I
had grown," and then desired news of Cousin Maud, and Kunz, and our
grand-uncle, and at last of Ursula Tetzel, which made me wroth.

I answered him shortly, and asked him whether he had no more than that to
say to me. He gazed down at the ground and said to himself: "To be sure,
to be sure." But in a minute he went back to his first manner, and when I
bid him good-night in anger he put his arm round me and turned me about
as if to dance.

I got myself free and went away, up to our chamber, hanging my head.
There I found my old Sue, taking off Ann's fine gown; and whereas Ann
nodded to me right sweetly and, as I thought, with a secret air, I
guessed that it was the waiting-woman who stayed her speech and I sent my
nurse away.

Now I should sooner have looked for the skies to fall than for Ann, my
heart's closest friend, to keep the secret of what had befallen that very
morning; and yet she kept silence.

We were commonly wont to chirp like a pair of crickets while we braided
our hair and got into our beds; but this night there was not a sound in
the chamber. Commonly we laid us down with a simple "Good night,
Margery," "Sleep well, Ann," after we had said our prayers before the
image of the Blessed Virgin; but this night my friend held me close in
her arms, and as I was about to get into bed she ran to me again and
kissed me with much warmth. Whether I was so loving to her I cannot, at
this day, tell; but I remember well that I remained dumb, and my heart
seemed to ache with sorrow and pain. I thought myself defrauded, and my
true love scorned. Was it possible? Did my Ann trust me no longer, or had
she never trusted me?

Nay more. Was she at all such as I had believed, if she could carry on an
underhand and forbidden love-making with Herdegen behind my back; and
this, Merciful Virgin, peradventure, for years past!

The taper had burnt out. We lay side by side striving to sleep, while
distress of mind and a wounded heart brought the tears into my eyes.

Then I heard a strange noise from her bed, and was aware that Ann
likewise was