“You, I take it, have never been restricted by discipline.”
Her head came up quickly.
“You think that because of what I said in the courtyard?”
“No; my mind was running towards the future rather than to the past. The rigor of strict rules would prove as irksome to you as would a cage to a free bird of the forest.”
“I fear you are in the right,” she said with a sigh; and then, impatiently, “Oh, you do not understand the situation, and I cannot explain! The convent is merely a retreat for me; the lesser of two evils presented.”
“You spoke of your land. Where is that land?”
“Do you know Schloss Sayn?” she asked.
“Sayn? Sayn?” he repeated. “Where have I heard that name before, and recently too? I thought I knew every castle on the Rhine, but I do not remember Sayn.”
The girl laughed.
“You will find no fellow-craftsman there, Pirate Roland, if ever you visit it. The Schloss is not on the Rhine, and, perhaps on that account, rather than because of its owner’s honesty, is free from the taint you suggest. It stands high in the valley of the Saynbach, more than half a league from this river.”