The noble maiden beheld with emotion this outburst of sisterly love; she trembled, and a deep trouble filled her heart. The paleness of Adolf's features, the consternation which had so visibly seized him, said to her: "Thou art ill-favored, thy wasted cheeks and thy dimmed and lustreless eyes inspire fear and abhorrence; he whom thou callest thy brother has shuddered at thy look of death." A dark despair overcame her; she felt her strength desert her; only with great effort did she succeed in reaching a couch, and then sank down faint and exhausted. She hid her face in her hands, as though to exclude from her view a spectre that appalled her; and thus remained, still and motionless. After a few moments, all was quiet in the room; she heard no more, and thought that she was left alone in that dreadful solitude.
But soon she felt a hand which pressed hers; she heard a gentle voice, which spoke to her in sorrow and in sympathy:
''Matilda! Matilda! Oh my hapless sister!"
She looked up, and saw Adolf standing before her, weeping. The tears fell thick and fast from his eyes, and his look expressed the warmest affection, the profoundest compassion.
"I am ugly; is it not so, Adolf?" she sighed forth. "You are shocked at me; you will no more love me as in days that are past?"
The knight trembled at these words; he looked at the maiden with a strange and significant expression, and replied:
"Matilda, can you entertain a doubt of my affection? Oh, then, you wrong me much. You are, indeed, changed. What illness, what sufferings have brought you so low, that the roses have thus withered on your cheek? I have wept, and have been alarmed indeed; but it is from sympathy and compassion, from the deep anguish which your hard lot has caused me. Ever, ever will I remain your brother. Matilda! I can comfort you now with joyous tidings; I can heal your sorrows with a message of gladness."
Gradually a feeling of joy and consolation stole into the maiden's heart. Adolf's voice exercised a wondrous power over her, and she replied, with cheerful animation:
"Good tidings, do you say, Adolf? Good tidings of my father? Oh speak, speak then, my friend."
With these words, she drew two chairs near her couch, and motioned to Maria and her brother to sit down upon them.
Adolf reached forth one hand to Matilda, the other to his beloved sister; and so he sat between the two maidens, as an angel of consolation, on whose words one lingered as on those of some holy hymn.
"Rejoice, Matilda, and thank God for His goodness. Your father returned to Bourges; in sadness, indeed, but in safety and in health. No one but the old chatelain and Diederik die Vos know the secret of his temporary liberation. He is already free even in his captivity; for his jailers have become his warmest friends."
"But should the evil-minded Joanna desire to avenge on him the insult which has been offered to France, who will then shield him from the executioner? You are no longer with him, my noble friend."
''Listen, Matilda. The guardians of the castle of Bourges are all old warriors, who, by reason of their wounds, are no longer equal to active warfare. Most of them witnessed the heroic deeds of the Lion of Flanders at Beneventum. You can not imagine with what love, with what admiration, they regard him at whose name the armies of France have so often trembled. Were Robert to seek to escape without the permission of the castellan, their master, doubtless they would prevent him. But I assure you—and I know well the noble souls of those warriors, who have grown gray beneath their coats of mail—that they would shed their last drop of blood for him whom they revere, were but a hair of his head threatened. Fear not, then; the life of your father is assured; and, but for the sorrow he felt on account of your sad fate, he would have borne his captivity in patience."
"You bring me such good tidings, my friend— your words sink so consolingly into my relieved heart—that I seem to drink in fresh life from your smile. Speak on still, if it be only that I may hear the accents of your voice."
"And yet fairer hopes has the Lion given me for you, Matilda. It may be the deliverance of your father is very near at hand; it may be that you will very soon be with him, and all your dear relations, in the beautiful Wynandael."
"What are you saying, Adolf? It is your friendship that prompts these words; but do not mock me with hope of a bliss that is impossible."
"Be not thus unbelieving, Matilda. Listen to the grounds of this joyful hope. You know that Charles de Valois, that noblest of Frenchmen, has drawn the bravest of the knights after him into Italy. He has not forgotten at the court of Rome that he is the guiltless cause of the captivity of your relatives. It has been a bitter thought to him that he himself, like a traitor, had delivered his friend and companion in arms, the Lion of Flanders, into the hands of his enemies; and he has been striving, in every possible way, to effect his liberation. Ambassadors have been already sent from Pope Boniface to King Philip the Fair, and have demanded of him, with urgency, the release of your father, and of all your relatives. The
