No cobwebs hung from the roof; the bows were duly unstrung; and though wooden platters and rough kitchen equipage were mingled with warlike accoutrements upon the floor, there was not a particle of dust to be seen anywhere. As they sat down at the mother's bidding, it was hard to persuade themselves that Maurice von Lynar was far off, enduring the hardships of war or in deadly peril for his mistress. He might have been even then in hiding in the brushwood, ready to cry bo-peep at them through the open door.
There was silence in the arbour for a space, a silence which no one of the three was anxious to break. For Joan thought of her promise, Conrad of Joan, and Theresa of her son. It was the last who spoke.
"Somehow to-day it is borne in upon me that Kernsberg has fallen, and that my son is in his enemy's hands!"
Joan started to her feet and thrust her hands a little out in front of her as if to ward off a blow.
"How can you know that?" she cried. "Who——No; it cannot be. Kernsberg was victualled for a year. It was filled with brave men. My captains are staunch. The thing is impossible."
Theresa von Lynar, with her eyes on the waving foliage which alternately revealed and eclipsed the ruddy globes of the apples on the orchard trees, slowly shook her head.
"I cannot tell you how I know," she said; "nevertheless I know. Here is something which tells me." She laid her hand upon her heart. "Those who are long alone beside the sea hear voices and see visions."
"But it is impossible," urged Joan; "or, if it be true, why am I kept here? I will go and die with my people!"
"It is my son's will," said Theresa—"the will of the son of Henry the Lion. He is like his father—therefore women do his will!"
The words were not spoken bitterly, but as a simple statement of fact.