e of entreaty at the knees of
Frau Helena. "Whoever you be, noble lady, save an innocent man! They
are on my track. Where--where--" and he looked around, and with
blood-stained hands pushed his dripping hair from his eyes. "Where can
I hide myself! What can I say to move your heart to pity? If you knew
how it had all come about, how entirely without fault of mine I have
fallen into this horrible strait--am hunted down as a murderer--oh
noble maiden--" and he turned to the pale girl who gazed with a shudder
at the red feather in the stranger's cap; "if you have a brother who is
dear to you--who may perhaps at this moment be asking hospitality in
some strange land--implore your lady-mother not to thrust me out into
the night where Heaven knows what disgrace may overtake me. By the head
of your own son, noble lady--"

"Silence!" interrupted Frau Amthor in a hollow trembling tone, more
awful in the ears of the suppliant than the roar of the thunder.
Meanwhile she looked at him with such an absent far-away expression
that her daughter flew to support her in case she should swoon. But it
passed over.

"Close the terrace-door," she hastily said, leaning back in her chair,
"then call Valentin. But make haste! I seem to hear voices in the
garden below."

The young girl bolted the heavy door in the twinkling of an eye, and
hurried off. The stranger remained a moment or two alone with the
mother.

"You are saving my honour and liberty!" he stammered out, "perhaps my
life. But believe, noble lady, that what you do is not done for one
unworthy or reprobate, and my own mother, who would ransom the life of
her son with all she has, were he to fall among bandits, will in return
for your noble-hearted deed--"

"Not another word," broke in the matron, "what I do is not done for
your sake. But you are bleeding," she suddenly said, and paused--her
glance falling upon a spot on his shoulder where great drops were
oozing through his black silk doublet.

"It is nothing," returned he, hastily pressing his glove on the place.
"I hardly feel it. Would to God that the blow I dealt in return may not
be more dangerous! But I fear--"

Lisabethli now returned with the old servant. "Valentin," said the
lady, "take this stranger gentleman to the upper story, and then see
him to bed--in the room--you know which. No one is to know that he is
in the house. I will give my own instructions to Donate. You understand
how to foment. Look to the gentl