“Then I sat long, sunk in thought, looking out of window, across the bare tree-tops in the garden, at the grey mist which seems as though it ended only at the edge of the world.  It drips from the leafless boughs, and mine eyes—­I need not hide it—­will not be kept dry.  It is as though the leaves from the tree of my life had all dropped on the ground—­nay, as though my own guilty hand had torn them from the stem.”

“I have but now come home from a right merry company!  It is of a truth a merciful fashion which turns night into day.  Yes, Margery, for one whose first desire is to forget many matters, this Paris is a place of delight.  I have drunk deep of the wine-cup, but I would call any man villain who should say that I am drunk.  Can I not write as well as ever another—­and this I know, that if I sold myself it was not cheap.  It has cost me my love, and whereas it was great the void is great to fill.  Wherefore I say:  ’Bring hither all that giveth joy, wine and love-making, torches and the giddy dame in velvet and silk, dice and gaming, and mad rides, the fresh greenwood and bloody frays!’ Is this nothing?  Is it even a trivial thing?

“How, when all is said and done, shall we answer the question as to which is the better lot:  heavenly love, soaring on white swan’s wings far above all that is common dust, as Ann was wont to sing of it, or earthly joys, bold and free, which we can know only with both feet on the clod?

“I have made choice and can never turn back.  Long life to every pleasure, call it by what name you will!  You have a gleeful, rich, and magnificent brother, little Margery; and albeit the simple lad of old, who chose to wife the daughter of a poor clerk, may have been dearer to you—­as he was to my own heart—­yet love him still!  Of his love you are ever sure; remember him in your prayers; and as for that you have to say to Ann, say it in such wise that she shall not take it over much to heart.  Show her how unworthy of her is this brother of yours, though in your secret soul you shall know that my guardian saint never had, nor ever shall have, any other face than hers.

“Now will I hasten to seal this letter and wake Eppelein that he may give it to the post-rider.  I am weary of tearing up many sheets of paper, but if I were to read through in all soberness that I have written half drunk, this letter would of a certainty go the way of many others written by me to you, and to my beloved, faithful, only love, my lost Ann.”

CHAPTER XIV.

Master Pernhart was wed on Tuesday after Palm Sunday.  Ann was wont to come to our house early on Wednesday morning, and this was ever a happy meeting to which we gave the name of “the Italian spinning-hour,” by reason that one of us would turn her wheel and draw out the yarn, while the other read aloud from the works of the great Italian poets.

Nor did Ann fail to come on this Wednesday after the wedding; but I had thrust Herdegen’s letter into the bosom of my bodice and awaited her with a quaking heart.