Herr Berthold helped his wife from the saddle as quickly as possible, and both hurried anxiously towards the arbour.  Frau Christine did not remain in the winding path, but though usually she strictly insisted that no one should tread on the turf, hastily crossed it to reach her goal more quickly.  But ere she could put the question she longed to ask, Cordula sorrowfully exclaimed:  “Don’t judge me too severely.  ’He who exalts himself shall be humbled,’ says the Bible, and also that the first shall be last, and the last first; but I have been forced to sit upon the ground whilst Eva occupies the throne.  I belong at the end of the last rank, whilst she leads the foremost.”

“Please explain the riddle at once,” pleaded Frau Christine.

Sir Boemund Altrosen came forward, held out his hand to his old friend, and spoke for Cordula “The horror and loathsomeness were too much for her, whilst Jungfrau Ortlieb endured them.”

“Eva remained at the hospital,” the countess added dejectedly, “because a dying woman would not let her go; whilst I—­the knight is right—­could bear it no longer.”

Frau Christine glanced triumphantly at her husband, but when she saw Cordula’s pale cheeks she exclaimed:  “Poor child!  And there was no one here to——­ One moment, Countess!”

Throwing down her riding-whip and gloves as she spoke, she was hurrying towards the sideboard on which stood the medicine-case, to prepare a strengthening drink; but Cordula stopped her, saying:  “The housekeeper has already supplied the necessary stimulant.  I will only ask to have my horse brought to the door, or my father will be anxious.  I was obliged to await your return, because——­ Well, my flight from the hospital certainly was not praiseworthy, and it affords me no special pleasure to confess it.  But you must not think me even more pitiful than I proved myself, so I stayed to tell you myself——­”

That it is one thing,” interrupted Sir Boemund, “to nurse worthy wood-cutters, gamekeepers, fishermen, and charcoal-burners, who, when wounded and ill, look up to their gracious mistress as if she were an angel of deliverance, and quite a different matter to mingle with the miserable rabble yonder.  The bloody stripes which the executioner’s lash cuts in the criminal’s back do not render him more gentle; the mutilation which he curses, and the disgrace with which an abandoned woman——­”

“Stop!” interrupted Cordula, whose lips and cheeks had again grown colourless.  “Do not mention those scenes which have poisoned my soul.  It was too hideous, too terrible!  And how the woman with the red band around her neck, the mark of the rope by which she carried the stone, rushed at the other whose eye had been put out! how they fought on the floor, scratching, biting, tearing each other’s hair——­”

Here the tender-hearted girl, covering her convulsed face with her hands, sobbed aloud.

Frau Christine drew her compassionately to her heart, pressed the motherless child’s head to her bosom, and let her weep her fill there, whilst the magistrate said to Sir Boemund:  “And Eva Ortlieb also witnessed this hideous scene, yet the delicate young creature endured it?”