But enough of intolerable theory.

Instinctively the Lady Ysolinde spoke to our maid of the Red Tower in a manner and tone very different from that which I had ever before heard her employ, at once more equal and more guarded.

“I was told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at my father’s house on the day after his foolish boy’s prank of the White Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, like myself a maid solitary among men.  So to-day I have come to solicit her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind to me, who have ever been in this city and country as a stranger in a strange land.”

It was prettily enough said, and our Helene, easily touched, and perhaps a little ashamed of her first stiffness, put out a hand which the other quickly and securely clasped.  Then those two sat down together.  Ysolinde von Sturm kept her eyes fixed on the Playmate, but our shy and slender Helene looked steadily past her out over the tumbled red roofs and peaked gables of the city of Thorn to the gray Wolfmark plains which lay spread beneath our windows like a picture in a book.

At intervals, as it came near the hour of their mid-day meal, the blood-hounds howled in the kennels, and by their tone I knew that my father had left the Hall of Judgment where he had been detained all the morning.  Also I knew very well that the Lady Ysolinde wished me to find an errand elsewhere, in order that she might talk alone with her companion.  But I saw also the appeal in the eyes of the Playmate, and I was resolved not to give her the chance.

“Are you never weary in this dull tower?” asked the lawyer’s daughter, still holding the Playmate’s hand.

“It is not dull,” replied Helene.  “I have my work.  There are two men as shiftless and helpless as babes to attend to, and none to help me but old Hanne.”

“Let men attend to themselves,” cried Ysolinde; “that is ever my motto.  They ought to be our servants, not we theirs.”

It was said smilingly, yet there was bitterness under the words as well.

“But,” said Helene, smiling back at her with a fresh directness all her own, “one of the men saved my life and brought me up as his own daughter, and the other is—­is Hugo, here.”

And as she spoke of my father and of me I saw the eyes of the Lady Ysolinde fixed upon her, as it had been to read her inner soul.

“And, by-the-way,” she said, at last, after a long pause, “you have heard how this same Master Hugo proposes to himself to escape from the prison-house of this city, for a season to exercise himself in arms, and so in roving adventure fulfil that which is not granted to a maid, his ‘wandering years.’  He goes (so my father tells me) to the Court of the Prince of Plassenburg, with the promise of a company to command.  And I am glad, for I shall ride thither under his escort.  Indeed, and in truth, my home is far more there than here in Thorn.  But I would fain have a companion of my own sex.  So I have come to beg of you, Mistress Helene, that you will accompany me.  The Princess, I know, has great need of a maid of honor near her person, and will gladly welcome a friend of mine for the post.”