I saw that she was ill-at-ease; but as she turned away he held her back to put the words into German, saying, in so dull and low a voice that I scarce could hear him, while he stirred up the earth with the point of his sword, purposing to lay some on his swollen hand.

                   “A froward bee hath stung my hand;
                    Mother Earth will heal the smart. 
                    But when I lie beneath the turf,
                    Say, Will she heal my broken heart?”

Then I saw that Ann turned pale as she said somewhat stiffly:  “There are other remedies for you against even the worst!” and he replied:  “But yours, Ann, work the best cure.”

By this time she was herself again, and answered as though she cared not:  “I learnt them from a skilled master.—­But in what tongue is your song, Junker Schopper, and who taught you that?”

To which he hastily answered:  “A swarthy wench of gipsy race.”

And she, taking courage, said:  “One peradventure whom you erewhile met in the forest here?” Herdegen shook his curly head, and his eye flashed lovingly as he spoke:  “No, Ann, and by all the Saints it is not so!  It was of a gipsy mother that I learnt it; she sang it to a man in despair —­in despair for your sake, Ann—­in the forest of Fontainebleau.”

Whereupon Ann shook her head and strove to speak lightly as she said “Despair!  Are you not like the man in the fable, who deemed that he was burnt whereas he had thrust another into the fire?  The cap fits, methinks, Junker Schopper.”

He replied sadly, and there was true grief in his voice:  “Is a hard jest all you have to give me now?” quoth he, “Nay, then, tell me plainly, Ann, if there is no hope for me more.”

“None,” said she, firm and hard.  But she forth with added more gently.  “None, Herdegen, none at all so long as a single thread remains unbroken which binds you to Ursula.”

On this he stepped close up to her and cried in great emotion:  “She, she!  Aye, she hath indeed cast her devil’s tangle of gold about me to ensnare all that is vain and base in me; but she has no more room in my heart than those bees have.  And if you—­if my good angel will but be mine again I will cry ’apage’—­I tear her toils asunder.”

He ceased, for certain ladies and gentlemen came nigh, and foremost of them Ursula; aye, and I can see her now drawing off her glove and stooping to gather up some earth to lay on the burning hand of the man whom in truth she loved, while he strove to forestall her and not to accept such service.  That night we stayed at the lodge, and Ursula again had the chamber next to ours; and again I heard her appealing to her Saints, while Ann poured out to me her overflowing heart in a low whisper, and confessed to me, now crying and now laughing, how much she had endured, and how that she was beginning to hope once more.

CHAPTER II.