a
private door, for the thing was over-strong even for him. He knew his
weakness too well to war with the immemorial privileges of the Wolfmark.

Rulers stronger than he had been broken in doing battle against ancient
rights and amenities. Besides, the nobility were afraid of their own
perquisites if one of so ancient a charter as that of the Hereditary
Justicer were refused.

Then from the palace came the Bishop, with due and decorous attendance of
crosier and solemn procession. And there, amid a turmoil of joy and the
ringing of every bell in the city, we, that had gone out to be together
in death, were joined in the bonds of youth and life.

But the Lady Ysolinde saw not--heard not. For they had carried her out
white and still from the place where she had fallen fainting at the foot
of the scaffold.

CHAPTER LIII

THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN

Al these things had overpast so quickly that when Helene and I found
ourselves alone in the Red Tower it seemed to both of us that we dreamed.

We sat in a kind of buzzing hush, on the low window-seat of the old room,
hand in hand. The shouts of the people came up to us from the square
beneath. We heard the tramp of the soldiers, who cheered us as they
passed to and fro. Being at last alone, we looked into each other's eyes,
and we could not believe in our own happiness.

"My wife!" I said, but in another fashion than I had said it on
the scaffold.

"My husband!" answered Helene, looking up at me.

But I think, for all that we realized of the truth, we might as well have
called each other King and Queen of Sheba.

We had been conducted with honor to the Red Tower. For since it was in
virtue of my hereditary office that I had obtained the great
deliverance, I dared for the present seek no other dwelling-place. For
Helene's sake, indeed, I should have felt safer elsewhere. Besides,
desperate and full of baffled hatred as I knew Duke Otho to be, I did
not believe that he would dare to molest us--for some time at least. The
rage of the people, their unbounded jubilation at the deliverance of
their Saint Helena from the jaws of death on the very scaffold, were too
recent to be trifled with by a prince sitting so insecure in his ducal
seat as Otho of the Wolfmark.

So here in the ancient Red Tower, I thought, we might at least be safe
enough till my good fellows of Plassenburg, with the Prince at their
head, should swarm hammering at the gates of Thorn.

To us,