men must ever look to an end.
Women are content with a continuance. That you should love me and keep on
loving me, that is all I want!"

"But," I began, "I love--"

"Ah, do not say it!" she cried, pitifully, clasping her hands with a
certain swift appeal in her voice--"do not say it! For God's sake, for
the sake of innocent blood, do not say that you love me not!"

She paused a moment, and grew more pensive as she looked stilly and
solemnly at me.

"I will tell you the end that I see; only be patient and answer not
before I have done. I have seen a vision--thrice have I seen it. Karl of
Plassenburg, my husband, shall die. I have seen the Black Cloak thrice
envelop him. It is the sign. No man hath ever escaped that omen--aye, and
if I choose, it shall wrap him about speedily. More, I have seen you sit
on the throne of Plassenburg and of the Mark, with a Princess by your
side. It is _not_ only my fancy. Even as in the old time I read your
present fortune, so, for good or ill, this thing also is coming to you."

She never took her eyes from my face.

"Now listen well and be slow to speak. The Princedom and the power shall
both fall to me when my husband dies. There are none other hands capable.
So also is it arranged in his will. Here"--she broke off suddenly, as
with a gesture of infinite surrender she thrust out her white hands
towards me--"here is my kingdom and me. Take us both, for we are
yours--yours--yours!"

I took her hands gently in mine and kissed them.

"Lady, Lady Ysolinde," I said, "you honor me, you overwhelm me, I know
not what to say. But think! The Prince is well, full of health and the
hope of years. This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion--how can
we speak of the thing that is not?"

"I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now,
as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that
I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady
Ysolinde--between the truth and my desire to save Helene. Almost it was
in my heart to declare that I loved the Lady Ysolinde, and to promise
that I should do all she asked. But though, when need hath been, I have
lied back and forth in my time, and thought no shame, something stuck in
my throat now; and I felt that if I denied my love, who lay prison-bound
that night, I should never come within the mercy of God, but be forever
alien and outcast from any commonwealth of honorable men.

"I cann