The daughter of Sir Charleroy found a home and a mother with Dorothea Woelfkin, the widowed parent of her affianced. What manner of woman the latter was may be readily inferred from the character of her beloved and only son, Cornelius. It sufficeth to say, mother and son were in all things wonderfully alike.
“Miriamne, I’ve called to ask, if we get the consent of my mother, that you attend a conclave of knights, to be secretly held, after Moslem prayers this evening.”
“Where?”
“At the house of the Christian sister, aged Phebe; just by the second wall of the city.”
“And why do they meet?”
“An eloquent Hospitaler, lately returned from a long mission, is to address the companions and their friends.”
“A Hospitaler; what’s his name?”
“Ah, there it is; the question all ask, and none can answer! He has given full tokens of his right to confidence, but declines, for reasons which he says are most pious, to reveal himself further than that he is a Knight Hospitaler of Rhodes.”
“Rhodes? Is he very tall, of piercing eyes, his hair long and jet, with streaks of gray?”