At this Ann humbly besought her to ask nothing concerning him; if my aunt loved her she would forbear from touching on the scarce-healed wound.  So much as this she said, though with pain and grief; but her friend was not to be moved, but cried:  “And do I not thank Master Ulsenius when he thrusts his probe to the heart of my evil, when he cuts or burns it?  Have you not gladly approved his saying that the leech should never despair so long as the sick man’s heart still throbs?  Well then, your trouble with Herdegen is sick and sore and lies right deep. . . .”

But Ann broke in again, crying:  “No, no, noble lady, the heart of that matter has ceased to beat.  It is dead and gone for ever!”

“Is it so?” said my aunt coolly.  “Still, look it close in the face.  Old Im Hoff—­I have read the letter-commands your lover to give you up and do his bidding.  Yet, child, does he take good care not to write this to you.  Finding it over hard to say it himself, he leaves the task to Margery.  And as for that letter; a Lenten jest I called it yestereve; and so it is verily!  Read it once more.  Why, it is as dripping with love as a garment drips when it is fished out of a pool!  While he is trying to shut the door on you he clasps you to his heart.  Peradventure his love never glowed so hotly, and he was never so strongly drawn to you as when he wrote this paltry stuff to burst the sacred bands which bind you together.  Are you so dull as not to feel this?”

“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