“Nay, I see it right well,” cried Ann eagerly, “I knew it when I first read the letter.  But that is the very point!  Must not a lover who can barter away his love for filthy lucre be base indeed?  If when he ceased to be true he had likewise ceased to love, if the fickle Fortunatus had wearied of his sweetheart—­then I could far more easily forgive.”

“And do you tell me that your heart ever throbbed with true love for him?” asked her friend in amazement, and looking keenly into her eyes as though she expected her to say No.  And when Ann cried:  “How can you even ask such a question?” My aunt went on:  “Then you did love him?  And Margery tells me that you and she have made some strange compact to make other folks happy.  Two young maids who dare to think they can play at being God Almighty!  And the Magister, I conceive, was to be the first to whom you proposed to be a willing sacrifice, let it cost you what it may?  That is how matters stand?”

Ann was not now so ready to nod assent, and my aunt murmured something I could not hear, as she was wont to do when something rubbed her against the grain; then she said with emphasis:  “But child, my poor child, love, and wounded pride, and heart-ache have turned your heart and good sense.  I am an old woman, and I thank God can see more clearly.  It is real, true love, pleasing to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, aye and to the merciful Virgin and all the saints who protect you, which has bound you and Herdegen together from your infancy.  He, though faithless and a sinner, still bears his love in his heart and you have not been able to root yours up and cast it out.  He has done his worst, and in doing it—­ remember his letter—­in doing it, I say, has poisoned his own young life already.  In that Babel called Paris he does but reel from one pleasure to another.  But how long can that last?  Do you not see, as I see, that the day must come when, sickened and loathing all this folly he will deem himself the most wretched soul on earth, and look about him for the firm shore as a sailor does who is tossed about in a leaking ship at sea?  Then will he call to mind the past, his childhood and youth, his pure love and yours.  Then you yourself, you, Ann, will be the island haven for which he will long.  Then—­aye, child, it is so, you will be the only creature that may help him; and if you really crave to create happiness—­ if your love is as true as—­not so long ago—­you declared it to be, on your knees before me and with scalding tears, he, and not Master Peter must be the first on whom you should carry out your day-dreams—­for I know not what other name to give to such vain imaginings.”