"Your reverence, it must be," said Florentine fearlessly; "I promised the babe's dying mother in your name that it should be received this day within the sheltering walls of Marienberg, and 'he will help a poor soul to keep her vow,' the dying woman said. He is the child of the noble Lady of Reichenberg."
The Abbot clasped his hands.
"What--where did you see her?"
"We found her at night on the heath, where her child had been born out in the snow. She is now lying in our house at St. Valentine's--dead."
The Abbot grasped his forehead with his hand as if he thought he was dreaming.
"The Lady of Reichenberg, the angel of Ramüss! What has happened to her?"
"She was repudiated by her husband on account of your relative Egno of Amatia; he fell in trial by combat. But the wife was innocent nevertheless, the child is Swyker of Reichenberg's child; but he cast it out to the birds of the air, and loaded it with the heaviest curses. In order that the curses might not take effect, she dedicated it to the cloister."
The Abbot Conrad took the child tenderly in his arms.
"Yes, poor orphan, you shall find a home here; none on earth are motherless to whom the church opens her sheltering bosom."
Then he went to the door, and called the Superior.