The harper shook his head.
"This is neither the time, nor the place. I must be gone—to shelter my burden! We shall meet again! If you follow me," he concluded, noting Eckhardt's persistence, "you will learn nothing and only endanger my safety and that of this child!"
"Is she dead?" Eckhardt questioned with a shudder.
"Would she were!" replied the stranger mournfully.
"Can I assist you?"
"I thank you! The burden is light. We will meet again."
There was something in the harper's tone which arrested Eckhardt's desire to ignore his injunction. How long he remained on the site of the ill-famed ruin, the Margrave hardly knew. When the fresh breeze of night, blowing from the Campagna, roused him at last from his reverie the mysterious stranger and his equally mysterious burden had disappeared in the haze of the moonlit night. Like one walking in a dream Eckhardt slowly retraced his steps to his palace on the Caelian Mount, where an imperial order sanctioning his purpose and relieving him of his command awaited him.
CHAPTER XI
NILUS OF GAËTA
