United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For Helene was with my father, and far safer, as I judged, than in the palace chambers of Plassenburg, and within striking distance of the Lady Ysolinde. And in that I judged not wrong, though the future seemed for a while to belie my confidence.
We shall never see them more, and they are all we have or our children. 'Tis they bring in the bread to this drear spot!" "Produce me your husbands, then!" said the Lady Ysolinde. Whereat the women ran and brought a number of frowsy and bleared men, all unwounded, save one that had a broken head. Then Ysolinde called to the Burgomeister.
We found the Lady Ysolinde waiting for us at her house, Master Gerard talking to her in the doorway, earnestly and apart. Both of them had a look of much solemnity, as though the matter of their discourse were some very weighty one. Presently her father kissed her and she came down the steps. I leaped from my horse to help her to the saddle, but the respectable serving-man was before me.
She who knew so many things, of a surety might be trusted to understand so much without being told. In the inner doorway Helene met us. And never had it been my fortune to see the meeting of two such women. She had been about to lay them away together, as is the fashion of women. And when she met the Lady Ysolinde I declare that she looked almost as tall.
With you, Hugo, I have no pride, no shame. I would take your love by violence, as a strong man surpriseth and taketh the heart of a maid." She was now all trembling and distract, her lips red, her eyes bright, her hands clasped and trembling as they were strained palm to palm. "Lady Ysolinde, I would that this were not so," I began. A new quick spasm passed over her face.
A great bare leg, with attachment of tattered hose hanging here and there, followed. Before the pistol could go off, Boris meanwhile waiting shrewdly for the appearance of a more vital part, a voice cried, "Stop!" I looked about me, and there was the Lady Ysolinde come out of her chamber, with a dagger in her hand. She was looking upward at the hole in the ceiling.
Ysolinde von Sturm kept her eyes fixed on the Playmate, but our shy and slender Helene looked steadily past her out over the tumbled red roofs and peaked gables of the city of Thorn to the gray Wolfmark plains which lay spread beneath our windows like a picture in a book.
So saying, he kissed Helene and stalked out without turning his head or making any further obeisance or farewell. We sat mazed and confounded after his departure. The Lady Ysolinde it was who first recovered herself. She put out a kindly hand to Helene, who stood wet-eyed and drooping by the window, looking out upon the roofs of Thorn, though well I wot she saw nothing of spire, roof, or pinnacle.
"Ha, Hugo," she said, "I thought I should find you here!" I did not say that if another had been kinder she might have found me elsewhere and otherwise employed. I had at least the discretion to leave things as they were. For the time to speak plainly was not yet. She took my arm, and we paced up and down. "Princess " I began. "Ysolinde!" corrected she, softly.
Twice when I was speaking to-day I saw a face I knew well look through a lattice in the wall at me. But being intent upon my words I did not think of it, nor indeed recognize it till it had disappeared. Now the picture comes back to me curiously clear. It was the face of the Princess Ysolinde." "I am to see her at nine o'clock to-night in the house of the Weiss Thor."
Word Of The Day