begged the countess to excuse her, and remained beside the wretched straw
pallet."

The deeply agitated girl had just released herself from the matron's
embrace, and begged the knight to have her Roland saddled; but Frau
Christine stopped him, and entreated Cordula, for her sake, to use her
sedan-chair instead of the horse.

"If it will gratify you," replied the countess smiling; "but I should
reach home safely on the piebald."

"Who doubts it?" asked the matron. "Give her your arm, husband. The
bearers are ready, and you will soon overtake them on your horse,
Boemund."

"The walk through the warm June night will do me good," the latter
protested.

Soon after the sedan-chair which conveyed Cordula, lighted by several
torch-bearers on foot and on horseback, began to move towards the city.

At St. Linhard, Boemund Altrosen, who walked beside it, asked the
question, "Then I may hope, Countess? I really may?"

She nodded affectionately, and answered under her breath: "You may; but
we must first try whether the flower of love which blossomed for you out
of my weakness is the real one. I believe it will be."

He joyously raised her hand to his lips, but a torch-bearer's shout--"
Count von Montfort and his train!"--urged him back from the sedan chair.