Now, when he returned from the plain, the fields, or the camp, when he embraced her he pressed against his bosom a bosom cold and filled with sadness and tears—a bosom so cold that it might have been thought to contain a block of ice in place of a heart—and he redoubled his tenderness towards her. Seeing how much he was suffering on her account, she vowed for him a boundless love.
Courageous, energetic even, she tried to shake off the languor which possessed her, endeavouring to intoxicate her soul and drown her self-consciousness in the love of her adored husband; but all her efforts were made in vain; she became more and more oppressed with weariness, and the crowd of servants about her, all eager to realise her wishes, were utterly unable to mitigate her condition by anything they could do.
At last she fell into a state of the deepest melancholy. The rose-tints faded from her cheeks, her beauty paled like that of a languishing flower; the light in her eyes grew each day more dim. She was very ill.
The most learned doctors in the healing art were called to her, brought, regardless of cost, from the most distant countries, only to confess their complete inability; excusing themselves by affirming that there was no remedy for an indefinable ailment—an ailment impalpable, incomprehensible.
Then, one day, an old, white-haired shepherd, with a long, snowy beard, who had learned to understand men from having always lived alone with his sheep and thinking, thinking, while he led them to their pasture—an old philosopher—came to Greatheart, of whom he was one of the vassals, and said to him:
"I know where there lives, close by here, an old grand-dame, with one foot in the grave, she is so old People call her a sorceress; but never mind that; she, and she alone, can cure our lady, our mistress, whom you love so well."
Knowing not what to do in his suffering, Greatheart believed what the old shepherd told him.
He took Rosebelle far away from the castle along the bank of the river, to a spot where the path ran between high rocks, leading to a deep and profoundly dark cavity, within which they found the old, old woman of whom the shepherd had spoken, crouching by the side of a scanty fire of pine-branches, warming herself in their fitful light, in the midst of owls and ravens, cats and rats with phosphorescent eyes, showing green in the obscurity when lit by the intermittent sparkle of the crackling branches on the hearth.
"Ho, there! sorceress!" cried the young Prince. "Cure my wife, and I will give you the half of all I possess!"
The very old woman looked for a long time at Rosebelle out of her little bright eyes, meeting those of the young Princess, and holding her as if by a spell. For awhile longer she remained silent, as if in contemplation; then, suddenly, she rose to her feet, raised her long arms towards the herbs suspended from the rocky roof of her dwelling-place, spread out her fleshless fingers and cried: