Throwing down her riding-whip and gloves as she spoke, she was hurrying
towards the sideboard on which stood the medicine-case, to prepare a
strengthening drink; but Cordula stopped her, saying: "The housekeeper
has already supplied the necessary stimulant. I will only ask to have my
horse brought to the door, or my father will be anxious. I was obliged
to await your return, because---- Well, my flight from the hospital
certainly was not praiseworthy, and it affords me no special pleasure to
confess it. But you must not think me even more pitiful than I proved
myself, so I stayed to tell you myself----"

That it is one thing," interrupted Sir Boemund, "to nurse worthy wood-
cutters, gamekeepers, fishermen, and charcoal-burners, who, when wounded
and ill, look up to their gracious mistress as if she were an angel of
deliverance, and quite a different matter to mingle with the miserable
rabble yonder. The bloody stripes which the executioner's lash cuts in
the criminal's back do not render him more gentle; the mutilation which
he curses, and the disgrace with which an abandoned woman----"

"Stop!" interrupted Cordula, whose lips and cheeks had again grown
colourless. "Do not mention those scenes which have poisoned my soul.
It was too hideous, too terrible! And how the woman with the red band
around her neck, the mark of the rope by which she carried the stone,
rushed at the other whose eye had been put out! how they fought on the
floor, scratching, biting, tearing each other's hair----"

Here the tender-hearted girl, covering her convulsed face with her hands,
sobbed aloud.

Frau Christine drew her compassionately to her heart, pressed the