coldly, and this gave the lie to such hopes; what I felt was no more than
the compassion due to a young man who was alone in the world, without
parents or brethren or near kin.

One morning I went to seek Herdegen in the armory and there found him
stripped of his jerkin, with sleeves turned up; and with him was the
Bohemian, striving with an iron file to remove from my brother's arm a
gold bracelet which was not merely fastened but soldered round his arm.
So soon as he saw that I had at once descried the band, though he
attempted to hide it with his sleeve, he sought to put off my
questioning, at first with a jest and then with wrathful impatience flung
on his jerkin and turned his back on me. Forthwith I examined Ritter
Franz, and he was led to confess to me that a fair Italian Marchesa had
prevailed on Herdegen to have this armlet riveted on to his arm in token
of his ever true service.

On learning this I was moved to great dread both for my brother's sake
and for Ann's; and when I presently upbraided him for his breach of faith
he threw his arms round me with his wonted outrageous humor and
boisterous spirit, and said: What more would I have, since that I had
seen with my own eyes that he was trying to be quit of that bond? To get
at the Marchesa he would need to cross a score of rivers and streams; and
even in our virtuous town of Nuremberg it was the rule that a man might
be on with a new love when he had left the third bridge behind him.

I liked not this fashion of speech, and when he saw that I was ill-
pleased and grieved, instead of falling in with his merry mood, he took
up a more earnest vein and said: "Never mind, Margery. Only one tall
tree of love grows in my breast, and the name of it is Ann; the little
flowers that may have come up round it when I was far away have but a