“And I dreamed she was a fiend,” said Jerome.
“And now, my father, I have prospered mightily. I am trusted of kaiser and feared of vassal. I have lands, and lieges, and nobly growing fame. But your curse has bittered every sweet; has darkened every sunbeam. Forgive, forgive me, oh, my father!”
Jerome sat upon the camp-bed, and his lips moved in prayer.
“Now God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Then he looked on the Graf, who had bowed his head, whilst tears rained fast.
“I will forgive you, oh, Sigismund, for whose soul I have prayed and striven these many years. For you I have fled the world, the company of men, the love of women, wrestling, toiling, suffering, that I might redeem your soul from the endless death. I will forgive you. But do you first forgive me?”
And then what more they said it is not wise to tell.
After a while Jerome asked of Ludwig:—
“Where is the little maid?” So they brought in Agnes, who cooed and chattered in the great saint’s arms, for “saint” she would call him still, though he said he was her grandfather.
“And you will take him away with us to Goslar?” she asked the Graf; “and because he is holy you will set him over the abbey, and he shall dwell in splendid state with chaplains and palfreys, acolytes and squires, like the Lord Prince Bishop of Bamberg?”