I stood before her, scarce knowing what to say.

“Sit down,” she said; “it is a long story, and yet I will not weary you, Hugo—­so much I promise you.”

I made answer to her, still standing up.

“To-night, my lady, after what you know, you will not be surprised that I can think of only one thing.  You know that to-day—­”

“I know,” she said, cutting me short, as if she did not wish to listen to that which I might say next; “I know—­I was present in the Judgment Hall.”

“Then, being Master Gerard’s daughter, you knew also the sentence before it was pronounced!” I said, bitterly, being certain as that I lived that the paper from which the Duke Otho read had been penned at this very house of the Weiss Thor in which I now sat.

Ysolinde reached a slender hand to me, as was often her wont instead of speech.

“Be patient to-night,” she said; “I am trying hard to do that which is best—­for myself first, as a woman must in a woman’s affairs.  But, as God sees me, for others also!  You are a man, but I pray you think with fairness of the fight I, a lonely, unloved woman, have to fight.”

“Will they carry out the terrible sentence?” said I, eagerly.  For I judged that she must be in her father’s counsels.

“Be patient,” she said; “we will come to that presently.”

Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was not to interrupt.  Yet even this was not done in her old imperious manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which went to my heart.

When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had formerly told my fortune in that very room.

“That which I have to say to you is a thing strange—­as it may seem unwomanly.  But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and certainly he did not make me as other women.  I have never had a true mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He brings into the world.

“Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine.  Next, equally against my will, I loved you.  Nay, do not start to-night.  It is as well to put the matter plainly.”

“You did not love me,” said I; “you were but kind to me, the unworthy son of the Executioner of Thorn.  Out of your good heart you did it.”

I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not what to say.

“I loved you—­yes, and I love you!” she said, serenely, as though my words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof.  “And I am not ashamed.  There was indeed no reason for my folly—­no beauty, no desirableness in you.  But—­I loved you.  Pass!  Let it be.  We will begin from there.  You loved, or thought you loved, a maid—­your Little Playmate.  Pshaw, you loved her not!  Or not as I count love.  I was proud, accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince’s wife.  The last, doubtless, should have held me apart.  Yet my Princessdom was but as straw bands cast into the fire to bind the flame.  As for you, Hugo Gottfried, you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with your confident, insolently dullard self.”