he
entered the house she received a letter from Bertram which almost broke
her heart.

The good countess received her with a cordial welcome, as if she had
been her son's own choice, and a lady of a high degree, and she spoke
kind words to comfort her for the unkind neglect of Bertram in sending
his wife home on her bridal day alone. But this gracious reception
failed to cheer the sad mind of Helena, and she said, "Madam, my lord is
gone, for ever gone." She then read these words out of Bertram's letter:
_When you can get the ring from my finger, which never shall come off,
then call me husband, but in such a Then I write a Never_. "This is a
dreadful sentence!" said Helena. The countess begged her to have
patience, and said, now Bertram was gone, she should be her child, and
that she deserved a lord that twenty such rude boys as Bertram might
tend upon, and hourly call her mistress. But in vain by respectful
condescension and kind flattery this matchless mother tried to soothe
the sorrows of her daughter-in-law.

Helena still kept her eyes fixed upon the letter, and cried out in an
agony of grief, _Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France_. The
countess asked her if she found those words in the letter? "Yes, madam,"
was all poor Helena could answer.

The next morning Helena was missing. She left a letter to be delivered
to the countess after she was gone, to acquaint her with the reason of
her sudden absence: in this letter she informed her that she was so much
grieved at having driven Bertram from his native country and his home,
that to atone for her offence, she had undertaken a pilgrimage to the
shrine of St. Jaques le Grand, and concluded with requesting the
countess to inform her son that the wife he so hated had left his house
for ever.

Bertram, when he left Paris, went to Florence, and there became an
officer in the Duke of Florence's army, and after a successful war, in
which he distinguished himself by many brave actions, Bertram received
letters from his mother, containing the acceptable tidings that Helena
would no more disturb him; and he was preparing to return home, when
Helena herself, clad in her pilgrim's weeds, arrived at the city of
Florence.

Florence was a city through which the pilgrims used to pass on their way
to St. Jaques le Grand; and when Helena arrived at this city, she heard
that a hospitable widow dwelt there, who used to receive into her house
the female pilgrims that were