Her spirit was heavy; I could see in her eyes that they had shed tears, and at my first question they filled again.  Had she not seen her mother this morn beaming with happiness, and then remembered, with new pangs of heartache, the father she had lost scarce a year ago and whose image seemed to have faded out of the mind of the wife he had so truly loved.

When I said to her that I well understood her sorrow, but that I had other matter to lay before her which might bring her yet more cruel grief, she knew that it must be as touching Herdegen; and whereas before I spoke I could only clasp her to me and could not bring out a single word, she thrust me from her and cried:  “Herdegen?  Speak!  Some ill has come upon him!  Margery—­Merciful Virgin!  How you are sobbing!—­Dead—­is he dead?”

As she said these words her cheeks turned pale and, when I shook my head, she seized my hand and asked sadly:  “Worse?  Then he has broken faith once more?”

Meseemed I could never speak again; and yet I might not keep silence, and the words broke from my bursting heart:  “Ah, worse and far worse; more strange, more terrible!  I have it here, in his hand.—­Henceforth—­my uncle, his rich inheritance. . . .  All is over, Ann, betwixt him and you.  And I—­oh, that he should have left it to me to tell it!”

She stood in front of me as if rooted to the ground, and it was some time before she could find a word.  Then she said in a dull voice:  “Where is the letter?”

I snatched it out of the bosom of my dress and was about to rend it as I went towards the hearth, but she stood in my way, snatched the letter violently from me, and cried:  “Then if all is at an end, I will at any rate be clear about it.  No false comfort, no cloaking of the truth!”

And she strove to wrench Herdegen’s letter from me.  But my strength was greater than hers, indeed full great for a maid; yet my heart told me that in her case my will would have been the same, so I made no more resistance but yielded up the letter.  Then and there she read it; and although she was pale as death and I marked how her lips trembled and every nerve in her body, her eyes were dry, and when she presently folded the letter and held it forth to me, she said with light scorn which cut in—­to the heart:  “This then is what matters have come to!  He has sold his love and his sweetheart!  Only her face, it would seem, is not in the bargain by reason that he keeps that to rob his saint of her holiness!  Well, he is free, and the wild joys of life in every form are to make up for love; and yet—­and yet, Margery, pray that he may not end miserably!”

Gentle pity had sounded in these last words, and I took her hand and besought her right earnestly:  “And you, Ann.  Do you pray with me.”  But she shook her head and replied:  “Nay, Margery; all is at an end between him and me, even thoughts and yearning.  I know him no more—­and now let me go.”  With this she put on her little cloak, and was by the door already when Cousin Maud came in with some sweetmeats, as she was ever wont to do when we thus sat spinning; and as soon as she had set down that which she was carrying she opened her arms to the outcast maid, to clasp her to her bosom and comfort her with good words; but Ann only took her hand, pressed it to her lips, and vanished down the stairs.