Slowly but surely she faded, although her distracted lover did everything in his power to prolong the life of the maid he loved.
In the early spring-time, while robins sang and the trees put forth their blossoms, he gazed his last on all that was mortal of poor Gretchen.
The great lady tried her best to comfort Gretchen's lover, but he would not be comforted.
His hopes were buried in Gretchen's grave, and she could not turn his thoughts to herself, and ere the first moon waned, they laid him, too, beside his Gretchen, in his last home.
The great lady never smiled again, and soon after the doors of the convent closed upon one of the most beautiful women of her time.
On her death-bed she called one and all of those about her to listen to her tragic story.
She cried out that they must not touch her hand, for it was stained with human blood; and it was then that her horrible story was brought to light.
And in an awful whisper, while the long shadows deepened, she made this terrible revelation: that years, before she had murdered her maid, Gretchen, because the girl was loved by him whom she would have won.
By night and by day she pondered upon how it should be done, then suddenly the way and means occurred to her.
There was a powerful drug of which she had heard that gave women the most marvelous of complexions, but which sooner or later caused death.