"No, they did not tell me."
"Do not you know either where he was brought from?"
"Yes," said the nurse, "a lay-brother of Saint Valentine's was there when I went, who had brought him to Marienberg."
The man vehemently grasped the woman's wasted arm.
"Do you not remember his name?"
"I do not know it, my lord, no one told me. But he was very old, and must be dead long since."
"Saint Valentine's," repeated the stranger between his teeth. "Indeed, Saint Valentine's--there perhaps I might find a trace," and he started up in haste to remount his horse; but the woman clutched him by the sleeve,
"My lord, my lord," she cried, "for God's sake! you will not leave us in our misery--and my child, the poor orphan--My hour is near--Have pity on the child or she must starve."
The knight flung a gold-piece into the sick woman's lap. "Here, that is all I carry with me in case of emergency; now, keep me no longer."
But she clung to him in her dying agony, "Gold is of no use to us, what does the child know of gold; wicked men may take it from her, and then she will be as helpless as ever. Shelter, my lord, and protection for the innocent! Oh, my lord, she is not my child, she is a child of sin; but the child is pure, my lord, as pure as the dew, as innocent as the fawn in the forest. I have brought her up in decency and the fear of God. Take charge of her, she is of noble blood; her mother was a lady, and the knight, her husband, was so long away in the field that she thought he was dead; then she fell into trouble. And the child's father--God save his soul--was a minnesänger at Count Albert's court, and the child has come by many gifts through him; she can sing and is full of pretty tunes, and hidden things are revealed to her. You would find her a joy to you, my lord."