looking Gotz freely in the face if by good hap I should meet him.

Then she went on to tell me in full all that had befallen my cousin
until he had gone forth to wander. When they had parted in wrath, he had
written to her from the town to say that if she were steadfast in her
displeasure he should seek a new home for himself and his sweetheart in a
far country; and she had sent him a letter to tell him that her arms were
ever open to receive him, but that rather than suffer the only son and
heir of the old and noble race of Waldstromer to throw himself away on a
craftsman's daughter, she would never more set eyes on him whom she loved
with all her heart. Never more, and she swore it by the Saviour's wounds
with the crucifix in her hand, should his parents' doors be opened to him
unless he gave up the coppersmith's daughter and besought his mother's
pardon.

And now the sick old woman bewailed her stern hardness and her over-hasty
oath with bitter tears; Gotz had been faithful to his Gertrude in despite
of her letter, and when, three years later, the tidings reached him that
his sweetheart had pined away for grief and longing, and departed this
life with his name on her lips, he had written in the wild anguish of his
young soul that, now Gertrude was dead, he had nought more to crave of
his parents; and that whereas his mother had sworn with her hand on the
image of the Saviour never to open her doors to him till he had renounced
his sweet, pure love, he now made an oath not less solemn and binding,
by the image of the Crucified Christ, that he would never turn homewards
till she bid him thither of her own free will, and owned that she
repented her of that innocent maid's early death, whereas there was not
her like among all the noble maidens of Nuremberg, whatever their names
might be.