The Archbishop of Mayence held up his thin hand with a gesture of deprecation.

“I use no word so harsh as ‘imprisonment.’  The penance, if you wish so to characterize it, is rather in the nature of a retreat, giving her needed opportunity for reflection, and, I hope, for regret.”

“Nevertheless, my Lord, your action seems to me unnecessarily severe.  How long do you propose to detain her?”

“I am pained to hear you term it severity, for her treatment will be of the mildest description.  I thought you would understand that no other course was open to me.  So far as I am personally concerned, she might have said what pleased her, with no adverse consequences, but she flouted the highest Court of the realm, and such contempt cannot be overlooked.  As for the duration of her discipline, it will continue until the new Emperor is married, after which celebration the Countess is free to go whither she pleases.  I shall myself call at Pfalz four days from now, that I may be satisfied the lady enjoys every comfort the Castle affords.”

“And also, perhaps, to be certain she is there immured.”

Mayence’s thin lips indulged in a wry smile.

“I need no such assurance,” he said, “since my Lord of Cologne has pledged his word to see that the order of the Court is carried out.”

The conversation was here interrupted by the return of Treves.  Already the great barge was half-way across the river.  The surging, swift current swept it some distance below Stolzenfels, and the rowers, five a side, were working strenuously to force it into slower waters.  Lord, lady, and monk crossed over to the mouth of the Lahn, and the barge returned immediately to convey across horses and escort.

As the valley of the Lahn opened out it presented a picture of quiet sylvan beauty, apparently uninhabited by any living thing.  The Archbishop of Cologne rose, and, shading his eyes from the still radiant sun, gazed intently up the little river.  No floating craft was anywhere in sight.  He turned to the captain.

“Where is the flotilla from Mayence?” he asked.

“Flotilla, my Lord?”

“Yes; a hundred barges sailed down from Mayence in the darkness either last night or the night before, taking harbor here in the Lahn.”

“My Lord, even one barge, manned as this is, could not have journeyed such a distance in so short a time, and, indeed, for a flotilla to attempt the voyage, except in daylight, would have been impossible.  No barges have come down the Rhine for months, and had they ventured the little Lahn is too shallow to harbor them.”

“Thank you, captain.  I appear to be ignorant both of the history and the geography of this district.  If I were to ask you and your stout rowers to take me down through the swiftest part of the river to Coblentz, how soon would we reach that town?”

“Very speedily, my Lord, but I could undertake no such voyage except at the command of my master.  He is not one to be disobeyed.”