waited so long? Oh,
weary world!"

"Hate him, Reicht? I would not harm a hair of his head for all that is
in nature; but look on him I cannot; I have taken a horror of him. Oh!
when I think of all I have suffered for him, and what I came here this
night to do for him, and brought my own darling to kiss him and call
him father. Ah, Luke, my poor chap, my wound showeth me thine. I have
thought too little of thy pangs, whose true affection I despised; and
now my own is despised, Reicht, if the poor lad was here now, he would
have a good chance."

"Well, he is not far off," said Reicht Heynes; but somehow she did not
say it with alacrity.

"Speak not to me of any man," said Margaret bitterly; "I hate them all."

"For the sake of one?"

"Flout me not, but prithee go forward, and get me what is my own, my
sole joy in the world. Thou knowest I am on thorns till I have him to my
bosom again."

Reicht went forward; Margaret sat by the roadside and covered her face
with her apron, and rocked herself after the manner of her country, for
her soul was full of bitterness and grief. So severe, indeed, was the
internal conflict, that she did not hear Reicht running back to her, and
started violently when the young woman laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"Mistress Margaret!" said Reicht quietly, "take a fool's advice that
loves ye. Go softly to yon cave, wi' all the ears and eyes your mother
ever gave you."

"Why? Reicht?" stammered Margaret.

"I thought the cave was afire, 'twas so light inside; and there were
voices."

"Voices?"

"Ay, not one, but twain, and all unlike--a man's and a little child's
talking as pleasant as you and me. I am no great hand at a keyhole for
my part, 'tis paltry work; but if so be voices were a talking in yon
cave, and them that owned those voices were so near to me as those are
to thee, I'd go on all fours like a fox, and I'd crawl on my belly like
a serpent, ere I'd lose one word that passes atwixt those twain."

"Whisht, Reicht! Bless thee! Bide thou here. Buss me! Pray for me!"

And almost ere the agitated words had left her lips, Margaret was flying
towards the hermitage as noiselessly as a lapwing.

Arrived near it, she crouched, and there was something truly serpentine
in the gliding, flexible, noiseless movements by which she reached the
very door, and there she found a chink, and listened. And often it cost
her a struggle not to burst in upon them; but warned by defeat, she was
cau