o risk life and limb to do her
bidding, being repaid by only a smile or one glance from her wine-dark
eyes.

It happened that while riding about in her pony-cart she had, by chance,
one day encountered a poor tradesman's son who had stopped by a brook at
which her own horse was slaking his thirst, to give his steed a drink.

One glance at the fair, handsome Saxon face, and the girl who had
laughed to scorn full many a lover, felt her heart going from her
keeping to this bonny stranger.

Although he was poor--only a tradesman's son--and she had wealth untold,
yet the beauty was not fair in his eyes.

He passed her by with only a gracious bow, as any courtier might, for he
was in a hurry to reach the side of his beloved Gretchen. She was only a
peasant maid, but in his eyes she was more beautiful than a queen.

He loved the pretty Gretchen with all his heart.

When my lady came to inquire about him, and learned he had a pretty
little sweetheart, she grew very wroth, but she said never a word.

On that day she sent for Gretchen, and employed her as her maid. But
from that hour there was a change in Gretchen's life.

Slowly but surely she faded, although her distracted lover did
everything in his power to prolong the life of the maid he loved.

In the early spring-time, while robins sang and the trees put forth
their blossoms, he gazed his last on all that was mortal of poor
Gretchen.

The great lady tried her best to comfort Gretchen's lover, but he would
not be comforted.

His hopes were buried in Gretchen's grave, and she could not turn his
thoughts to herself, and ere the first moon waned, they laid him, too,
beside his Gretchen, in his last home.

The great lady never smiled again, and soon after the doors of the
convent closed upon one of the most beautiful women of her time.

On her death-bed she called one and all of those about her to listen to
her tragic story.

She cried out that they must not touch her hand, for it was stained with
human blood; and it was then that her horrible story was brought to
light.

And in an awful whisper, while the long shadows deepened, she made this
terrible revelation: that years, before she had murdered her maid,
Gretchen, because the girl was loved by him whom she would have won.

By night and by day she pondered upon how it should be done, then
suddenly the way and means occurred to her.

There was a powerful drug of which she had heard that gave women the
mo