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The duchess graciously offered me a goblet of wine, and after I had drunk, Yolanda led me down the stairway to the House under the Wall. While descending Yolanda called my attention to a loose stone in the wall of the staircase. "The other end of this stone," she said, "penetrates the wall of the room that you and Sir Max occupied the night before you were liberated.
The metamorphosis was complete, and Max's hallucination, I felt sure, would be cured. The princess's face was not burned on his heart, whatever might be true of Yolanda's. I can give no stronger testimony to the marvellous quality of the change this girl had wrought in herself than to tell you that even I began to doubt, and wonder if Yolanda had tricked me. The effect on Max was instantaneous.
Don't you, tante?" said Yolanda, beaming upon the burgher. "No," answered the frau, "I should want them all for my husbands." "God forbid!" cried Yolanda, lifting her hands as she turned toward the door, laughing once more. "Tell them to be here by six o'clock, uncle. No! we will say five. Tell them to come on the stroke of five.
Again the battle-axe came slowly down, and the din in the pavilion was deafening: "Kill him! Kill him!" Again the battle-axe rose; but after a pause, Max let it fall to the ground behind him; and, turning toward the girl, lifted her with his mailed hands to her feet. When she had risen Max looked into her face, and, falling back a step, exclaimed in a voice hushed by wonder: "Yolanda!"
"'Yolanda' is the name by which Sir Karl knows me. You see, mother, I was not mistaken in deeming him my friend." Then she turned suddenly to me, and taking my rough old hand in hers, lifted it to her lips. That simple act of childish gratitude threw me into a fever of ecstasy so great that death itself could have had no terrors for me. He might have come when he chose.
"I I have heard enough of her and have often seen her," she replied. "She usually rides out with her ladies at this hour. From the upper end of the garden you may soon see her come through the Postern gate, if you care to watch." "I certainly should like to see her," I answered, rapidly losing faith in my conclusion that Yolanda was the princess.
Had I tried to see the country I should have failed; the dust-cloud we carried with us was impenetrable." He turned to Yolanda, "That was a hard journey for you, Fräulein." "No, no," she cried, "it was glorious. The excitement was worth a lifetime of monotony; it was delightful. I could feel my heart beat all the time, and no woman is sure she lives until she feels the beating of her heart."
Hereafter we must travel night and day. We must double our retinue at Strasburg and hasten forward regardless of danger and fatigue. I wish we were across Lorraine and well out of Metz. If this war begins, Lorraine will surely turn upon Burgundy." "I begged you not to come upon this journey," said Castleman, complainingly. "I know you did, uncle," returned Yolanda, repentantly.
"Well, uncle, since I must tell my own tale, I will begin," said Yolanda, blushing. "I want you to go to The Mitre and ask a friend two friends of yours here to supper this evening. I have waited a weary time for you to give this invitation, and I will not wait another hour, nay, not another minute. We have a fat peacock that longs to be killed; it is so fat that it is tired of life.
"These mountains are beautiful," said patriotic Yolanda, "but our lowlands raise bread to feed the hungry." On one occasion we rode to the Falls of Schaffhausen, and often we were out upon the river. During these expeditions Yolanda adroitly kept our little party together, and Max could have no private word with her.
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