"What good would it do you? It would be too late; he has taken the vows, and you could not break them."
The Count looked darkly before him, and made no reply.
"Your second wife never had much joy of her treason; you repudiated her too if I remember rightly?"
"Yes; at the end of two years the Pope gave me permission to announce that my first wife was dead, and to marry again; my mind had already wandered from the Lady of Eppan, but I had to keep my word--she held me to it hard and fast--and so she became my wife; but I was always away from home in battle and danger, for the world was spoilt for me, and so was all my liking for that false woman. When I returned from my four years' expedition to the Holy Land I found her carrying on an intrigue with Master Friedrich von Sunburc, the minnesinger and chronicler of your father's court. Nay more, a faithful waiting-woman of my first wife who could never get over the loss of her former mistress, betrayed to me that the shameless woman had not long since had a daughter, and had concealed the child with a strange beggar-woman whom she had met gathering berries and simples in the woods; as soon as the news of my return was known, the woman and the child had disappeared, leaving no trace behind. How I punished her, how the minnesinger was expelled from the court by Meinhard the first, and how she died, abandoned to remorse in her own ruined castle, all that you know."
"She was an intriguing coquette," said the Duke shaking his head, "and ensnared all men with her gold-gleaming owl's eyes and her auburn hair. She had something of the witch about her, and I could almost believe that she was one, for you know the common people say that you can tell a witch not by her feet only, but by her eye-brows that meet above her nose; she had such eye-brows you may remember?"
"I do not believe in such things," said Reichenberg sulkily.
"Nor I either," said the Duke laughing. "But there was something not quite canny about her, say what you will."
The Abbot meanwhile had taken Donatus to the Duchess.
"May it please you, noble Lady," said he, "that this youth, my favourite disciple, should have the honour of guiding you in your walk round the convent."
The Duchess glanced at Donatus with condescending kindness, and the court-ladies exchanged meaning glances, "That is the one we saw just now." Donatus stood in the door-way with downcast eyes.