"Yet, my Lord, I kept my oath, although I saw my--my--"

The girl hesitated and blushed, but finally spoke up bravely:

"I saw my lover led to his destruction. If Wilhelm is my cousin, then
did his father take a desperate chance in trusting first, to my escape
from the camp, and second to my perjury. You endow him with more than
human foresight, my Lord."

"He builded on your love for Wilhelm, which he had seen growing under
his eye before either you or the lad had suspicion of its existence. I
know the man, and he is a match for Satan, his master."

"But Satan has been discomfited ere now by the angels of light, and
even by holy men, if legend tells truly. I have little knowledge of
the world, as you have said, but the case appears to me one of the
simplest. If my uncle wished the bitterest revenge on you, what could
be more terrible than cause you to be the executioner of your own son?
The vengeance, however, to be complete, depends on his being able to
place before you incontrovertible proof that you were the father of the
victim. Send, therefore, a messenger to him, one from Gudenfels, who
knows nothing of what has happened in this castle of Schonburg, and who
is therefore unable to disclose, even if forced to confess, that
Wilhelm is alive. Let the messenger inform my uncle that his son is no
more, which is true enough, and then await the Outlaw's reply. And
meanwhile let me venture to warn you, my Lord, that it would be well to
conceal your disbelief from Wilhelm, for he is high-spirited, and if he
gets but an inkling that you distrust him, he will depart; for not all
your possessions will hold your son if he once learns that you doubt