r's counsels.

"Be patient," she said; "we will come to that presently."

Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further
she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was
not to interrupt. Yet even this was not done in her old imperious
manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which
went to my heart.

When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had
formerly told my fortune in that very room.

"That which I have to say to you is a thing strange--as it may seem
unwomanly. But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and
certainly he did not make me as other women. I have never had a true
mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He
brings into the world.

"Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine. Next, equally against my
will, I loved you. Nay, do not start to-night. It is as well to put the
matter plainly."

"You did not _love_ me," said I; "you were but kind to me, the unworthy
son of the Executioner of Thorn. Out of your good heart you did it."

I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not
what to say.

"I loved you--yes, and I love you!" she said, serenely, as though my
words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof. "And I am not
ashamed. There was indeed no reason for my folly--no beauty, no
desirableness in you. But--I loved you. Pass! Let it be. We will begin
from there. You loved, or thought you loved, a maid--your Little
Playmate. Pshaw, you loved her not! Or not as I count love. I was proud,
accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince's wife. The last,
doubtless, should have held me apart. Yet my Princessdom was but as straw
bands cast into the fire to bind the flame. As for you, Hugo Gottfried,
you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with
your confident, insolently dullard self."

She smiled bitterly, and, because the thing she spoke was partly true, I
had still nothing to answer her.

"Hugo Gottfried," she said, "try to remember if, when we rode to
Plassenburg in the pleasant weather of that old spring, you loved this
girl whom now you love?"

"Aye," said I, "loved her then, even as I love her now."

"You lie," she answered, calmly, not like one in anger, but as one who
makes a necessary correction, "you loved her not. You were ready to love
me--glad, too, that I should love you. And since you knew not then of my
rank, it was no