t such as was
manifest lies.

As thus: Duke Casimir was collecting a great army, magnificent with
cannon and munitions of war. He was shut up tight in the Wolfsberg, not
daring to show his face to his own citizens. He would appear some fine
day before the Palace of Plassenburg and slay every man of us. He was in
a madman's cell, and Otho von Reuss was Duke of the Mark in his place.

These were only a few of the stories which were brought to regale us
daily. And since there was no certainty anywhere, we were all in the dark
concerning the military matters which it behooved us greatly to be
acquainted with. Therefore I was honestly eager for my master's sake to
undertake the perilous journey. But to tell the whole truth, the fact
that I had not had a word from the Little Playmate, not so much as a line
of script nor a verbal message since her disappearance, made me more
eager to go than the high politics of a dozen provinces.

Since the duel, and the final declaring of my love for Helene, I had seen
but little of the Princess. Indeed, I kept out of her way, so far at
least as I could. And the Lady Ysolinde remained mostly in her own
domains--to which, of late, I had been less and less invited.
Nevertheless, when we met, she was more than kind to me--gentle,
forbearing, pathetic almost in bearing and demeanor, like as a woman
wronged, slighted, misconstrued.

Also there was sent to my quarters a new banner for my following,
broidered and blazoned in yellow and blue, a saddle-cloth of silk for my
horse, fine as a woman's robe, with a crowned Y faint and small in the
corner, lettered in straw-colored gold. No man could help being touched
by such kindly thought, which, after all, is more than mere liberality.

Yet I saw a sight upon her stairs one night which awoke me with a sudden
start to the fact that we had one to reckon with in our journeying to the
city of Thorn whom we had not as yet taken into consideration.

For it chanced that I was passing up to the Prince's apartments by the
quicker way, through corridors and by stairs to which he had given me
private access. And there, upon the steps leading to the Lady Ysolinde's
rooms, I saw the decent servitor of Master Gerard stand waiting. He
stared as hard at me as I did at him. But whereas his smooth, silent,
secret face remained with me, and I knew him at a glance, it was, I
judged, clean impossible that he could know the beardless stripling in
the mustached leader