“Indeed, Hilda,” said Roland, laughing, and abandoning the more formal title of “madam,” “I am no such tyrant as you suppose.  Besides, your office of first lieutenant has lapsed, because our men have all gone south, while we travel north.”

“Then may I talk with you?”

“Nothing would please me better.  I was thinking of your own welfare, and not of my desire, when I counseled slumber.”

“Oh, I assure you I slept very well during the first part of the night, for, there being nothing else to do, I went to bed early, and was quite unconscious until the dreadful ringing of that alarm bell, which set the whole Castle astir.”

“Why were you imprisoned?”

“Because—­because,” she replied haltingly, “I had chosen the religious life, the which my guardian opposed.  He appeared to think that some experience of the rigors of the convent might make me less eager to immure myself in a nunnery, which, like Pfalz Castle, is also on a restricted island.”

“Then his remedy has proved unavailing?”

“Quite.  The Sisters will be very good to me, for I shall enrich their convent with my wealth.  ’Twill be vastly different from incarceration in Pfalz.”

“Hilda, I doubt that.  Captivity is captivity, under whatever name you term it.  I cannot understand why one who spoke so enthusiastically just now of hills and valleys and liberty should take the irrevocable step which you propose; a step that will rob you forever of those joys.”

The girl remained silent, and he went on, speaking earnestly: 

“I think in one respect you are like myself.  You love the murmur of the trees, and the song of the running stream.”

“I do, I do,” she whispered, as if to herself.

“The air that blows around the mountain-top inspires you, and you cannot view the hills on the horizon without wishing to explore them, and learn what is on the other side.”

There was light enough for him to see that the girl’s head sank into her open hand.

“You, I take it, have never been restricted by discipline.”

Her head came up quickly.

“You think that because of what I said in the courtyard?”

“No; my mind was running towards the future rather than to the past.  The rigor of strict rules would prove as irksome to you as would a cage to a free bird of the forest.”

“I fear you are in the right,” she said with a sigh; and then, impatiently, “Oh, you do not understand the situation, and I cannot explain!  The convent is merely a retreat for me; the lesser of two evils presented.”

“You spoke of your land.  Where is that land?”

“Do you know Schloss Sayn?” she asked.

“Sayn?  Sayn?” he repeated.  “Where have I heard that name before, and recently too?  I thought I knew every castle on the Rhine, but I do not remember Sayn.”

The girl laughed.

“You will find no fellow-craftsman there, Pirate Roland, if ever you visit it.  The Schloss is not on the Rhine, and, perhaps on that account, rather than because of its owner’s honesty, is free from the taint you suggest.  It stands high in the valley of the Saynbach, more than half a league from this river.”