sitting thus hand in hand, there entered the Bishop Peter.

"Hail!" he said, blandly, and in his grandest manner, as we knelt for his
benediction; "hail, bride and bridegroom! God has been good to you this
day. Bishop Peter, the least of His servants, greets you very well. May
you have long life and prosperity unfailing."

I thanked him for his gracious words.

"The folk of the city are full of joy," he said. "I think they would
almost proclaim you Duke to-day."

"I desire no such perilous honor," I replied, smiling; "it were indeed an
ill-omen to have a Duke habited all in red."

"It is your marriage-dress, Hugo," said Helene; "I will not have you
speak against it."

Ever since the strain of the scaffold she had not once broke down--no,
nor wept--but only desired to sit very close beside me, touching me
sometimes, as if to make sure that I was real. Deliverance had been too
great and sudden, and those things which had come so near to us
both--Death and the Beyond--had left a salt and bitter spray on our lips.

"And what of the Lady Ysolinde?" I asked of the Bishop.

Now the Bishop Peter was a good man, but, like many of his brethren, a
lover of great, swelling words.

"The Lady Ysolinde," he said, oratorically, "by the immediate assistance
of the city guard, was placed in a litter and deported, all unconscious
as she was, to her father's house in the Weiss Thor, where she still
remains. But her most seasonable extract from the laws of the Wolfmark,
which so opportunely saved the life of your fair wife, and led to this
present happy consummation, I have here by me, even in my hand."

And with that the Bishop drew the rolled parchment from his pocket and
handed it to me, with all the original seals depending from it. Now I
have small gift for the deciphering of such ancient documents, being only
skilled in the common script of the day, and not over-well in that. So
that I had to depend upon the offices of Bishop Peter for the
interpretation.

"I think," said the Bishop, after he had finished reading it over, "that
this document had best remain in my own possession. It may be safer
under the seal and protection of the Church--even as, to speak truth,
you and your wife would also be. I am a plain man," the Bishop
continued, after a pause, "but remember that there is ever a place of
refuge at the palace--and one which even Duke Otho is not likely to
violate, remembering the experiences of his predecessor, Duke C