The silver dial, volume 1 (of 3)
Date: 2025-06-24T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance fiction; Strasbourg (France) -- History -- 16th century -- Fiction; Astronomical clocks -- France -- Strasbourg -- Design and construction -- Fiction

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Title: The silver dial, volume 1 (of 3)

Author: Mary C. Rowsell

Release date: June 24, 2025 [eBook #76370]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Swan Sonnenschein, Le Bas & Lowrey, 1886

Credits: Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SILVER DIAL, VOLUME 1 (OF 3) ***

THE SILVER DIAL.

BY
MARY C. ROWSELL.

AUTHOR OF
“ST. NICOLAS’ EVE,” “LOVE LOYAL,” “TRAITOR OR PATRIOT,” &c., &c.

“AS MANY LINES CLOSE IN THE DIAL’S CENTRE;
SO MANY A THOUSAND ACTIONS, ONCE AFOOT,
END IN ONE PURPOSE.”—Henry V.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LE BAS & LOWREY,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.

1886.

THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

CONTENTS.

Chapter | Page
I.—A Young Mathematician | 1
II.—The Strassburgers’ Dilemma | 11
III.—The “Lily-Flower” | 19
IV.—“Favour and Prejudice” | 32
V.—Father Chretei’s Bequest | 46
VI.—Radegund’s Inspiration | 54
VII.—“The Best of all Words” | 66
VIII.—“Oh, dark, dark, dark, without all hope of day!” | 74
IX.—A Woman’s Guile | 83
X.—A Famous Clock | 96
XI.—The Pass Key | 105
XII.—“Spirits of Health, or Goblins damn’d?” | 121
XIII.—Old-World Tales | 135
XIV.—“Das Herz ist gestorben, die Welt ist leer” | 153
XV.—Dr. Wolkenberg | 176
XVI.—“Is there no Hope?” | 187
XVII.—Farewell | 200

THE SILVER DIAL.

CHAPTER I.

A YOUNG MATHEMATICIAN.

Long ago, there lived in the city of Strassburg a worthy burgher named Christian Dasipodius. Very highly esteemed was this man by his fellow-citizens, and there were few among them who had not an approving word for him. This was a little remarkable, inasmuch as Christian was by no means a rich man. It is true that he had a goodly house of his own, and wore his fur-bordered gown of stout murrey-cloth with the best of them, and held his head high among the wealthiest of his merchant brethren, looking every inch the honest trader in skins and furs that he was. Still, comparatively, Christian Dasipodius was poor; he had not contrived, after the wont of so many of his fraternity, to lay up much goods for many years. In earlier life he had met with one or two heavy pecuniary losses; and afterwards, when Fortune did smile on him, and everybody said that now Christian really bade fair to be a rich man, there began to develop in him some rather rare characteristics. He found it, for example, so utterly impossible to pass unheeding by a distressed fellow-creature, or to withhold any help it was in his power to afford strugglers up the hill of life. If some poor but honest young apprentice, whose years of servitude had just expired, chanced to cross his path, and Christian saw him painfully toiling to amass the little capital necessary for setting himself up in his craft, he immediately began to think of his own once meagre purse, and how to him, in early days, a friend in need would have been a friend indeed; and then he would come forward with a word of encouragement on his lips, and nice little gold pieces in his hand, which the recipient was to repay only at some date quite convenient to himself.

Now and then it happened this convenient date was so long a coming, that Christian knew he would have to bid farewell for ever and a day to his gold pieces; but then he always consoled himself with the reflection that if his generosity had been misplaced, or went otherwise unrequited, it was far oftener his privilege to see those to whom he had afforded such timely aid pushing on with a lighter heart and better courage. It is, perhaps, needless to reiterate that Christian’s generosity had not made him a richer man by so much dross sterling; but it did make the pure metal of his nature shine out through his eyes, and in his kindly smile; and perhaps there was not to be found in all Strassburg a happier, more thoroughly contented-minded man than Christian; but this was before his great sorrow fell upon him, a sorrow in whose presence all his pecuniary trials and losses faded to nothingness,—the death of his wife. Christian, who was a handsome fellow, and might have chosen pretty nearly where he would from among the maidens of his native city, had with that perversity innate in the masculine mind, chosen to fall in love with a beautiful Lorraine woman, whom he married. One son was born to them. This boy while inheriting his father’s tall, well-knit figure and manly features, was endowed also with much of his mother’s soft, intelligent beauty; and as the boy, whom they christened Conrad, grew up, it was small wonder that the parents were very proud of their only child.

At an unusually early age, Conrad evinced a talent for figures and geometry, and an affection for Euclid which mightily astonished his schoolmates. His mother, marking the bent of the boy’s mind, bade her husband mark it too; and Christian, with something of a sigh—for he would so infinitely have preferred to discover in him a talent for skin-dressing, said: “Good—let it be so, then; and I will spare nothing that Conrad may learn all he seems to have such a fancy for. Mathematics is a grand science, and has made men famous and honourable—only he must work.” And Conrad did work; and his mother watched him with a proud, thrilling heart, longing earnestly for that day when her son should take his place among the great and learned of their city. But years—many years ere that day could come, the mother’s heart had ceased to throb, and her marvellously beautiful eyes were closed in death. A sharp, brief illness carried her away from Christian and her child, and the two were left alone to fight their life’s battle together.

Christian’s grief at his wife’s loss was great indeed; he thought when for the last time his lips touched that face so fair even in death, that he could never again be the man he had been; and he was right—the smiles rarely brightened his honest face now; and somehow, when they did come, they only made it look the sadder. Nevertheless, for the sake of the boy, through whose eyes the soul of her he so dearly loved seemed still to commune with his, Christian did strive hard to recall a little of his old cheeriness. Grief is more transitory in youthful natures, and dearly as Conrad had loved his mother, time blunted his sharper sorrow for her loss; but he was always wont to say, that when he tried to think what his guardian angel was like, it was a bright, beautiful form, like his dead mother, which his mind’s eye saw; and though there came a time when he loved as he never believed he could have loved, and the girl who won his heart was pure and good as one fancies the angels are, still not even she supplanted the guardian angel of his boyhood; for dead or living, a good mother is always a good mother to the end of one’s life.

When still quite a boy, Conrad had been placed in the school or studio of Chretei Herlin, a monk of the Benedictine Monastery of Saint Thomas, who, in the seclusion of the cloister, had made himself one of the greatest mathematicians and mechanists of his age. Possibly if Herlin and his cotemporaries could rise from their graves now, and see the wonders of our day—our printing-presses, our looms, our Reuters, our locomotives, our sewing machines, and all those countless other contrivances for making steel and wire do duty for human sinew and bone, they would, in their humility, tell themselves that they could have no place now among men. And yet, who but men like Chretei Herlin and Conrad Dasipodius, with their thoughtful brains, their plodding industry, and poor clumsy apparatus, could have smoothed the way for our Brunels, our Jacquards, our Stephensons, and all the rest of that noble company which has applied its knowledge to the uses of every-day life, and given us comforts and conveniences of which those Middle Ages might not even dream?

At all events, Conrad Dasipodius did not disgrace his century; and Chretei Herlin was vastly proud of this aptest among his pupils, and loved him with that glorious kindred-spirit love which sometimes does exist between master and pupil, when jealousy does not step in to dull its brightness. Sometimes Herlin would smile, and say to the elder Dasipodius: “The world will forget all about Chretei Herlin, Master Christian; and that is only as it should be; for what am I but a poor unworthy monk? Still, methinks that now and again, I shall hear the good Strassburgers say as they pass my grave, ‘Oh, yes, the old monk Chretei! he lies there. Once he was something of a teacher to the great Conrad Dasipodius’; and then I shall smile proudly enough in my coffin, I can tell you, and sing my Gaudeamus.”

“He is a good lad, Father Chretei,” Christian would answer with glistening eyes; and then, with a faint sigh, he generally used to add: “But you will bid him come home more betimes of a day? I see so little of him now, and I would fain have him more with me. He is a good son, and does not neglect his old father; but still his heart is all in his work; the boy toils too closely.”

And truly Dasipodius did toil from morning till night, and from night till near morning again; he was for ever at his problems and his experiments, never daunted by obstacle or defeat—for ever toiling, persevering on towards what he had undertaken, and happier and more content over his work than my Lord of Hapsburg himself. The necessity for eating and sleeping troubled him somewhat; but he satisfied these demands of Dame Nature in a manner as niggardly as she would possibly countenance, and a crust of black bread, and a draught of thin red wine, were as good as a feast to him. As for sleeping, it was difficult to say when the young mathematician ever did rest his busy brain, for the lamp seemed always to be gleaming up long after midnight in that little turret chamber at the angle of the furrier’s house—which, in compliment to his son’s mathematical and horological talent, Christian had long ago named the “Silver Dial,” for every house in Strassburg was then distinguished by its sign.

There was no doubt Conrad was burning the candle of his youth at both ends. It fretted the elder Dasipodius to see this. “It is my own fault,” he would say; “I urged on this willing horse of mine too hard at first, and now he has taken the bit between his teeth, and nothing will stop him. Thou’rt killing thyself, Conrad.” Then Conrad would smile, and a very winning smile it was. “Why now, Väterchen, what would you have? You who have worked so hard all your own life too!”

“Nay, but not at night; your health will suffer, and you will blind yourself poring over these crabbed figures, and then all these coils and springs, no thicker than threads. Why, see now, this wheel is hardly big enough for a flea to take hold of!”

“Oh, that wheel, for example. Yes, it is not altogether a bad piece of workmanship. It is cleanly turned out, but the cogs must be filed down a little more—just a little”; and so, talking to his wheel, Conrad would find his way, without looking, up the turret staircase, all impervious to parental expostulation.

It was about this time that the civilised world was making great advances in the science of mechanics; and perhaps since Sol, the primæval time-marker, had first begun to rise and set, never before had such an impetus been given to improvements in horology. The town of Nuremberg had claimed for itself the invention of the coiled watch-spring, and carried on a large trade in the manufacture of its celebrated “Nuremberg eggs,” as watches came almost universally to be called. Strassburg was also very foremost in efforts for the advancement of the sciences; and especially she had been the nursing mother of several learned geometricians and mathematicians, among these being Chretei Herlin. Some who understood such matters predicted, as we have seen had Herlin himself, that the young Dasipodius would rival him; but as yet Conrad was a comparatively unknown toiler, silently working his way among a dozen or so of other students in Herlin’s shady old monastery studio, and when night came on, and his comrades took holiday, he would go home to the Dial, and mounting the turret staircase, would work on at the labour he delighted in, until worn out at last, he would snatch a few hours for rest.

CHAPTER II.

THE STRASSBURGERS’ DILEMMA.

Two hundred years earlier than this time, the great architect Erwin von Steinbach had enlarged and beautified Strassburg Cathedral, and at about the same date, a clever artificer had contrived to make a curious mechanical clock. A wonderful work was this clock, and ever since, it has been the pride and admiration of the city. It told the time very well, and that is no doubt a desideratum in a clock; but it did much more than that, for it had a pert chanticleer who popped himself out of a little cupboard, and clapped his wings when the hour struck; then it had a tiny carillon which tinkled merrily; and so, take it for all in all, one would be a mere heretic to say that this horologe had not been in its time a good catholic clock, and creditably done its works of supererogation. But the clock was not infallible—indeed that word was not yet invented—and once or twice of late had not been up to time at all; and one fine day this old clock, having seen many a generation quietly laid to rest from their labours, began also to think and to feel itself past work, and struck—struck for the last time.

Now, whether it is some dear one whom the good God has taken home to a better world, or whether it is only your pet but worn-out saucepan which cooked omelettes and other galimafries as no other saucepan ever can, it is so very disagreeable to find yourself suddenly without what you have been so long used to call your own. You feel aggrieved and injured beyond measure, and wish you had treated your possessions better while you had them; and so it was with the Strassburgers and their clock.

“It has no business to wear out,” said one.

“The Town Council ought to have seen to it long ago,” said another; “but there, what can one expect from such a pack of old women!”

“It is a shame. How am I ever to tell now when my Hans is coming in to dinner? And if it is not ready to the minute, he always growls like six bears!” sighed a good wife.

“Kunz will always be pretending now he didn’t know it was so late!” scolded another whose spouse was somewhat inordinately devoted to the shrine of the “Golden Bull” opposite.

“Rudolf will never be keeping his tryst properly by the river now!” sighed a maiden.

“What’s the use of a clock that won’t go? tell me that, gentlemen!” thundered Burgomaster Niklaus von Steinbach, at the next assembled Town Council. And then everybody went to look at the clock, setting their arms a-kimbo, and scowling and frowning. It was all of no use however; there was the clock, and there still as death were its hands, the long one at eleven, and the short one at twelve, and not one hundredth part of an inch further would they budge—no, not if my Lord Bishop himself had anathematized them with bell, book, and candle. But the Bishop only said: “My children, things will wear out; we must have a new clock”.

And the Town Council said that was a happy thought of my Lord’s; and forthwith a resolution was put and unanimously carried, and then drawn up by the town-clerk on a stupendously lengthy roll of parchment, to the effect that the cathedral clock being worn out, it was desirable a new one should be commenced. Moreover, that aforesaid clock, having been a work of considerable ingenuity and skill, it was but just and right, and proper, that the new Horologe should, in every particular equal, and if such a thing were possible, surpass its predecessor. And to this end, only one truly and greatly versed in the curious science of horology, should be entrusted with the preparation, and building up, and putting together of such Horologe. Therefore this was to give notice to all whom it might concern, being those mechanicians and artificers who felt in themselves that they were competent and able to undertake so great a work as the making of the aforesaid Horologe—that these aforementioned mechanicians, mathematicians, and artificers in horology should make ready their plans, and devices, and designs, and send them in on a certain day, for the consideration, and selection, and choosing, by the most honourable and well-born Town Council.

Further, it was made known to these competitors, that on its completion, an adequate sum should be awarded out of the municipal treasury to the successful candidate and maker, and deviser, of the Horologe. And furthermore, all men were to know, that the day on which aforesaid Horologe should be completed, was to be celebrated throughout the city as a festival day, and a general and universal holiday.

Here was a good chance for somebody! and all the candidates set to work, and began to make their estimates, and then, the appointed date having arrived, they sent them in. There was a good round dozen of competitors, but the greater number of them were soon distanced; and the choice at last lay between three, Chretei Herlin, and his two pupils, Conrad Dasipodius and Otto von Steinbach. Opinion differed almost uproariously as to the merits of those three designs. Some admired Otto von Steinbach’s vastly. It was so showy, and had as many painting and gilding capabilities as a piece of gingerbread; as to the inside of it, well—there, what did that signify? who would ever see the inside of it? Some folks did so love to quibble over trifles. Wasn’t Otto von Steinbach descended from the great and famous architect Irwin von Steinbach, and what could any one want more? Nevertheless, many grumbled and said, if it had not been for his name, Otto would have been out of the running altogether; and certainly he had no right to have been even a bad third. Otto, however, counted on the influence of his uncle Niklaus the Burgomaster; but he was out in his reckoning, for Niklaus said his nephew’s design could not hold a candle to the one submitted by Conrad Dasipodius; and Otto said this was a crying shame and scandal for a man not to stand by his own flesh and blood, and that he did not deserve to have a nephew at all. Enlightened spirits who failed to see that ancestry had any voice in the question, balanced their decision very carefully, but the choice fell at last on Chretei Herlin. Meritorious and beautiful as Conrad’s design was declared to be, and even in some respects superior to Herlin’s, still, all things considered, they chose Herlin’s design, for the old monk was a tried and long-trusted man among them, and reputed, above all others, for experience in his craft.

Although proud of the distinction conferred on him, Chretei Herlin would have been well content to have seen Conrad Dasipodius entrusted with the work: “For,” said he, “I am long past my threescore now; and young brains are clearer than old ones, and Conrad’s plan was better than mine; but Fiat Voluntas Tua Domine; and if it please Thee, my poor mantle shall one day fall on the boy’s shoulders.” Then he set to work at the Horologe, and Conrad helped him.

It would have been out of all nature, if the younger mathematician had felt no pang of disappointment at the Town Council’s final decision. Dasipodius had spent time and infinite care over his design, but who can ever excel, without being thwarted once and again? Then too, compared with Herlin, Conrad thought himself as nothing. Who, indeed, was worthy to make the clock, but he who was to make it, Father Chretei? Otto von Steinbach, however, did not quite see things in the same light. “It was a shame,” he said, “every way. The old man was already in his dotage; he might have had talent in his day, but nearly all the designs had been handsomer than Herlin’s, and certainly he did not hesitate to consider his own immeasurably superior. As for Conrad’s designs, they were poor, decidedly poor. The fellow, you see, was such a slow coach. Why, to his knowledge, Dasipodius had spent nights and days concocting those few ideas of his, and putting them on paper; whereas he, Otto von Steinbach, had dashed his down in less than no time, just a scratch here, and a dot there, and you had it. Of course, if the Town Council could afford to set aside hereditary talent in this wholesale fashion, that was its business; but to his thinking, it was absurd that such pig-heads should be allowed to give rein to favour and prejudice in this way.” And these opinions Otto would air to each chance individual of his acquaintance whom he could buttonhole. It was a great theory with Otto von Steinbach, that “every thing in Strassburg went by favour and prejudice”.

CHAPTER III.

THE “LILY-FLOWER”.

Could it be favour and prejudice which blinded the eyes of Sabina von Steinbach, the Burgomaster’s only child, to the attractions of her exquisite cousin Otto? Really Otto found it a hard matter to accredit such ill-taste to so pretty a girl as Sabina!

Pretty Sabina undoubtedly was, with an indescribable charm about her absolutely bewitching; the gentlest, simplest-minded maiden in all the empire; and yet, withal, in her way the most dignified little woman imaginable. No wonder the old goldsmith loved her as the apple of his eye. Only within the last year it was, that Sabina had come home from the convent near the old neighbouring town of Freiburg. Niklaus’ wife had died when their little daughter was barely two years old; and the child had ever since been under the care of her aunt Odille, Superioress of St. Marie’s Convent. This lady did her duty very faithfully by Sabina; and when, at the age of sixteen, she left the convent to come home and keep her father’s house, there was not in all Elsass a thriftier, cleverer housewife, or a more accomplished little lady, than the daughter of the Burgomaster of Strassburg.

Niklaus had a large house, and a goodly retinue of servants, and the Mother Odille had been careful to instil into her niece’s mind, that it was her duty to learn to be able to instruct these, or to put her own hand to anything when occasion demanded; and to this end Sabina had been thoroughly initiated into all those domestic mysteries essential to daily creature-comfort. Besides, however, Sabina’s peculiar genius for compounding conserves and condiments, and making such venison-pasties as have been never before or since equalled, she could spin, and embroider, and play on the virginal, and sing very sweetly; and then, too, she could read very passably indeed; so that as times went, Sabina was quite accomplished. The Mother Odille had also had some idea of having Sabina taught to write, but when she broached the subject to her brother, Niklaus negatived it very emphatically. “No daughter of his,” he said, “should ever hold a pen, if he could help it. Your women who want to be as clever as men, were never the ones to make a hearthstone happy. No, no; write, forsooth—what next?” Well, Sabina had no great fancy for learning to write; she did not care to be inking her little fingers just for the sake of being like a few learned ladies, who scrawled ugly marks on vellum and parchment, because they had got it into their heads that it was quite the thing to do.

And so Niklaus von Steinbach was very proud of his daughter, and it was a day of days for him when, for the first time, he walked one Sunday morning to Cathedral Mass with her little hand resting on his arm. Many a glance was cast at the girl as she knelt beside her father in the crowded nave before the high altar. Otto von Steinbach, among the rest, thought she was uncommonly good-looking, that little convent-bred cousin of his; and he glared jealously on one or two of his male acquaintance, who betrayed by their covert stares that they were of his opinion. Among the crowd of worshippers that same morning, chanced to be Conrad Dasipodius; but, as Otto was wont to declare, Dasipodius was always so aggravatingly attentive to the special business in hand, be it what it might, and the special business just then being High Mass, some time passed before the mathematician looked up from his missal. Possibly he might have persisted in playing this Saint Anthony part to the end of the service, had not his ear caught the tones of a soft voice, mingling with his friend the Burgomaster’s deep, thorough bass, when the Tantum Ergo swelled forth—a voice so clear, so distinct from other voices, and yet so exquisitely gentle and subdued, that he turned to see what manner of woman it was who sang; and when he saw her, it seemed to him that nothing so lovely as that face had ever rejoiced his eyes, unless, indeed, it was the picture up yonder of Our Lady,—no, no—not sad-faced Mater Dolorosa; farther along there, nearer the altar, that gentle young Mother Mary, with the bright, glad smile. And so, having once looked, he could not choose but look again, and many times; and when Mass was over, he lingered on the broad porch steps, just, as he told himself, to bid Master Niklaus a civil good-morrow; and when, as it chanced, the Burgomaster stopped, and held out his hand to Dasipodius, and said: “This is my little daughter, Master Dasipodius, you must bid her welcome home to Strassburg,” his heart beat a thought faster, and his pale cheek flushed ever so slightly; and then—then the old man and his daughter passed on. “Holy Virgin! but what a pretty creature she has grown, to be sure!” said Niklaus’ friends and neighbours among themselves; and afterwards they said as much to Niklaus himself:—“Why, Burgomaster, she is sweet and fair as a lily-flower.”

“Aye, aye!” murmured the well-pleased Niklaus. “Yes, a lily-flower, so she is—a lily-flower!”

After that Sunday morning, it was no great wonder that Sabina von Steinbach, like thousands of other pretty young girls, since the beginning of the world, began to be able to count her admirers by the score. A very ardent one among them was Otto von Steinbach; Sabina’s beauty was very much to his taste, and then that dowry, which he knew the wealthy goldsmith’s daughter would have, considerably enhanced her other attractions. As to the near relationship between them, well, one would of course have to get a dispensation for that; but dispensations were to be had, and the game was worth the candle, quite worth it. And so Otto von Steinbach decided that he would marry Sabina; and began to set about those little preliminary formalities which custom demanded on such occasions. Somehow, however, his wooing did not speed so fast as it ought to have sped; Sabina would so foolishly insist on treating him in that sort of cousinly fashion which is flavoured with too strong a spice of fraternal affection, to please a would-be lover. Of course, Sabina being a woman, and a young and pretty one to boot, had in her something of the coquette, and liked her cousin’s homage very well, just as she liked to hear the sighs of those other Corydons who flocked about her; but she treated all with the greatest impartiality, troubling her head little enough about them, and as to her heart, that seemed not to have the shadow of a share in the matter; and when Niklaus used jokingly to ask her who was to be the chosen one, she would only laugh merrily, and say that they were “a pack of silly geese, and not one of them was to be chosen”.

Now and again Conrad Dasipodius would look in at the Burgomaster’s for half an hour of an evening on his way home from the studio; but that was an old habit of the mathematician’s; his father Christian and Niklaus had been schoolmates, and the friendship thus begun in youth, had continued on through life, and there was nothing these old men so well enjoyed, as to sit down and enjoy a friendly quarrel together over a beaker of Burgundy, for luckily their politics did not in the least agree. Niklaus was all for ceding Strassburg to France, a subject which had already begun to be mooted, while Christian was dead against the cession. Strassburg, he contended, had been the Fatherland’s time out of mind, and the Fatherland’s it ought to remain to the crack of doom; but Niklaus would tell Christian that he was a sentimental old pig-head—was not Germany already a vast deal too big and unwieldy for its own comfort?—wasn’t it divided against itself? and what good was Strassburg ever to get out of such a state of things?—whereas France was a grand united thriving monarchy, with men at its head who looked well after its affairs; why, there couldn’t be another opinion about it at all. Christian, however, maintained that there was another opinion, and he stuck to it to his dying day, and Niklaus stuck to his; and perhaps if these two old men could come back from Shadowland now, they might still find something to talk over regarding this question.

And so Niklaus and Christian being such fast friends, it was natural that Christian’s son should look in now and then at the Burgomaster’s. Moreover, Conrad had lately had business with von Steinbach. The goldsmith was negotiating about certain precious stones required for the interior mechanism of the new clock, and this transaction brought Dasipodius into yet more frequent communication with von Steinbach. Therefore, as Sabina told herself, it certainly was the most natural thing in the world that the mathematician should come and pass half-an-hour or more in their old dining-hall, at least three evenings in the week. When it comes to be a question of precious-stone dealing, one cannot of course be too careful down to the smallest minutiæ; and Sabina began quite to like these visits of the young mathematical professor, and indeed to look forward to them. It was so good, she thought, for her father to be having a chat with a clever man now and then, instead of being always obliged to bend to her little feminine intellectual level, and that of the every-day people with whom he ordinarily had to do. And then really, although often she could not altogether follow the learned current of their confabulations, it was very pleasant to sit by at her spinning or her embroidery-frame in the mullioned window, and listen to the grave, quiet tones of Conrad’s voice, which to her had in them something far more agreeable than the magpie chatter of her cousin Otto and the rest. Then too, it seemed to her that his accents sounded still more strangely sweet, when he turned, as sometimes he did—not often—specially to address herself; and she thought that never were such good, kind, beautiful eyes as his—yes, so incomparably more beautiful—so different from any other eyes she had ever seen; and she would read them to herself, just as she used to read in her little Book of Hours, until their glances lived in her heart and her memory, every whit as much as the prayers did; and she came by degrees to meditate long and often upon them—for indeed there was in their quiet, thoughtful earnestness, much food for meditation—until the girl found herself no longer fancy free, but loving Conrad Dasipodius with all her heart.

Yet, what a terrible state of things! To think that she had fallen in love, as people call it, with this tall, grave, learned gentleman, who could have as much idea about her, as he had about a gingerbread doll. Oh, it was humiliating! terrible! and Sabina began to fret herself greatly about it; but there was no need at all, because Conrad Dasipodius had had many ideas about Sabina, a great many—they had come to him, much as they had come to her, sitting by the mullioned window, and watching the crimson glory of the setting sun lingering round her fair head, and crimsoning the tips of those little white fingers, as they daintily twined the silken threads; and at such times his heart beat with a strong new-found love. Sometimes, when these sunrays had quite faded, he fancied that curious crimson flush still hovered about her transparent brow and cheek, but then he feared he might be mistaken, that it was some defect in his eyesight, for indeed his eyes had been troublesome to him of late—that it was all a delusion, a mere pleasant dream, for it could be only your dashing, showily-dressed fellows, such as Otto von Steinbach, for instance, who were likely to have any chance with pretty maidens of eighteen; and then Dasipodius began seriously to reconsider that old resolve of his about taking the vows in Saint Thomas’ monastery. It had always seemed the best course he could adopt; for a man who intended to devote his every energy to his profession, there was nothing so good as cloistered seclusion. Once there safe under its protection, one could work on from morning till night—ay, from night till morning even, unshackled by tiresome custom, undisturbed by those drones and frivolous creatures of the world, who make the student’s life hideous to him by their thoughtless interruptions. Only the monotonous tinkle every hour or so of the bell calling to Nones or Compline, for the utterance of a prayer and a psalm, which, at all events, must do more good than harm. No carking cares in the peaceful monastery; no distracting pangs born of unrequited or misplaced love, which make a man unfitted for life or for death. None of these things; and so Dasipodius resolved not to allow the germ of his love for the Burgomaster’s daughter to spread in his heart, until there might be no wrenching it away without fearful damage. But yet—yet—Conrad, as became so great a mathematician, weighed and calculated, and watched, and thought, and pondered, until it began to dawn upon him, that perhaps fine clothes and a few surface accomplishments need not be all in all to a woman; and gradually he found himself saying, as lovers will say: “No—is she not so different from other girls this clear, darling, little Sabina—she has some sense”;—he did not add in so many words, “for she likes me”; but he began to think she might like him, and so he grew bolder and bolder, until one evening he brought her a dark red rose, and begged her wear it for his sake, daring, as he offered it, to lift his eyes to hers just for one little moment, and then it must have been—either that deeply-blushing rose, or else the red sun was at his tricks again, for there came that red glow in her cheeks, and the lily fingers, as they fastened the flower in her bodice, trembled and grew chill; and almost before Conrad knew what he was doing, the little hand was in his warm grasp, and he had said: “Sabina—I love you—say, can you love me?”

And Sabina nestled to his breast, and said: “Yes, Conrad”.

And there was one kiss, one rapturous murmur, and so ended the suit of Conrad Dasipodius with Sabina, the Burgomaster’s daughter.

CHAPTER IV.

“FAVOUR AND PREJUDICE.”

There was, however, a third person concerned in their wooing, a very important person too—the Burgomaster; and it was doubtful if he would look favourably on the plan the lovers had marked out for themselves. Sabina had her dower, and Conrad, at his father’s death, would inherit a modest fortune, but the day when that should fall into his hands, he hoped was far distant; beyond this, he had nothing but what his own exertions brought him. Truly, the incentive to work had now become, if possible, greater than ever, and the desire to gain money, hitherto a very secondary consideration, had grown very strong indeed, ever since that little tête-à-tête he had had in the dining-hall with Sabina von Steinbach. All the money, however, which he was likely to earn, would not make anything like a fortune suitable for laying at the feet of the wealthy Burgomaster’s daughter. Still von Steinbach was not exactly a hard, money-grubbing man, and Conrad’s hopes ran high when he explained the state of things; but Niklaus said:

“Now look here, Conrad Dasipodius, you are the last man in Strassburg I should care to quarrel with. To the best of my belief, you’re a good fellow, and I know you’re a clever one, and some day I’ve no doubt you’ll be making a great name for yourself in the world. Meantime, what are your means for keeping my child?”

“Your daughter refuses to speak of leaving you just yet, Master Niklaus; and I am content to wait, until I can offer something worthy her acceptance.”

“That sounds all very well. Meantime, I am growing old. Supposing, for example, I should die?”

“We will suppose no such thing, Burgomaster.”

“Don’t interrupt; I say, supposing I should die, who is to take care of my Sabina then?”

“Who but I?” fervently said Conrad.

“And live on love, and nothing a year, paid quarterly! You’re crazed, Conrad Dasipodius; go back to your wheels and your coils, and forget my little maiden. It is best for you.”

Dasipodius, however, had no heart for work until the other matter was settled, and this he told Niklaus; and the old man’s eyes glistened with something of pride and pleasure, for he had a sincere liking and admiration for the young mathematician; still he laid his hand on his shoulder and said: “How can I blame you, boy? for this Sabina is the best and fairest girl in Strassburg, but your suit is in vain. Go, I have other views for her—go!” And if Dasipodius had pleaded all night, he would not have succeeded in extracting another word from the old man.

The truth was, that only that very morning, two offers of an eligible kind had been made to the Burgomaster for Sabina’s hand; one of these proposals was made by an offshoot of the great and noble house of Eberstein. This gentleman’s fortunes were, however, somewhat dilapidated, and he had a notion that Sabina von Steinbach’s dower might help to build them up again. The Burgomaster’s keen eye saw through all this; nevertheless, he thought it would be a fine thing to see his darling an Eberstein. The other proposal was from Otto von Steinbach. Now Otto at present was certainly no richer than his fellow-student, Dasipodius, but he had great expectations from an old great-aunt who idolized his handsome face; and this lady being very aged, and full of dolorous ailments and twinges, could not last many months. At least so Otto thought, and he represented as much to the Burgomaster.

“You know,” he said, “she herself is always saying: ‘Please God, I shan’t last long!’”

“And you say, Amen?” queried Niklaus.

“Well, look here, you know, I—I—well, it’s hard on a fellow, just because favour and prejudice——”

“My good Otto, go and tell your tale to Sabina in your own way.”

And Otto went. “Poor Otto!” said the Burgomaster, when he was gone, “he’ll never set the Rhine on fire; but there’s no harm in him, and if Sabina—well, well, we shall see. At any rate, there can be no favour and prejudice.”

This was true, for the Burgomaster did not interfere in his daughter’s choice between the two suitors; he permitted each to plead his cause in person, a permission which, by the bye, the careless Conrad had omitted to ask; but Niklaus was a little taken aback, when he found that his daughter had rejected both the one and the other. The scion of the noble house of Eberstein did not stay to tell the Burgomaster of his discomfiture, but hardly trusting his own ears, shook the dust of that ungrateful household from his feet, and mounting his jennet, rode off for ever and a day.

Neither could Otto von Steinbach grasp the fact that his cousin had refused him. “What, Sabina,” he had said to her, “you are mocking me! Have not I told you I think you the prettiest girl in Strassburg? and I say there is not one who would suit me so well for a wife——”

“Nay, nay, cousin, ’tis all a mistake——”

“A mistake!—Himmelsdonnerwetter, I swear——”

“No don’t, Otto. Pray hush.”

“I will not hush. I say, I do not care one pin what becomes of me, if you’re not my wife. Do you hear?”

“Yes, Otto, I hear; I am so sorry.”

“Sorry, Aller Teufel!” Then he paused, and his voice softened. “Look, Sabina, only see! I am on my knees before you—I, who have won favours from noble ladies. Yes, Sabina, I could whisper a tale or two——”

“Don’t, Otto, and get up. It is so foolish to see you there.”

“But when I say I love you, Sabina, you can not turn from me.”

Yet she had turned away, weeping. Her tender little heart, which shrank from seeing the smallest insect in distress, was sorely disturbed at sight of Otto’s face. He mistook those tears for signs of relenting; but soon the girl dashed them aside, and turning to him once more, said: “Otto, some day you will find one who will love you dearly. For me it is impossible, since I love already.”

Otto von Steinbach started to his feet. “So,” he said, “then I have been supplanted?”

“Yet—no,” proudly answered Sabina—“not supplanted; I never loved but him.”

“Him!—who?—who has dared——”

“Otto!” There was a world of reproof in Sabina’s voice; and Otto stood momentarily abashed. Soon, however, recovering himself, he demanded: “Whom is this you love?”

“Conrad.”

“Conrad who?”—there was only one Conrad in the world for Sabina—“not Dasipodius?”

Sabina flushed rosy red, and nodded gently. Otto, however, burst into a loud, mocking laugh, and said that if maidens chose to sigh for the moon, that was their affair; but that everybody knew Dasipodius had given all his heart to his profession, and had none of it to spare for love-sick girls.

“Nevertheless,” said Sabina, the red blood dyeing her brow crimson with indignation, “he loves me, and I love him. You had best go home, Otto von Steinbach.”

Furious with jealousy, Otto rushed from Sabina’s presence to the Burgomaster’s little room behind his workshop, where Niklaus was busy sorting a new consignment of rubies and pearls. “She has refused me!” he cried.

Niklaus looked up. “She has refused—rejected me, I say!”

“So?” interrogated the goldsmith. “Then my Lord Count has won the day.”

“What Lord Count? No; it is that—that automaton, Conrad Dasipodius.”

“But it cannot be, nephew. Only this very morning I explained to the child that it was out of the question.”

“I would have sworn,” burst forth Otto, “that there was favour and prejudice at the bottom of this. And you knew then, all the time.”

“Certainly I knew the two creatures said they loved each other; but I told them it could not be, and that they must think no more about it,” placidly answered the Burgomaster, laying a pair of pearl earrings in their velvet case.

“But they do think more about it. I tell you, Uncle, not five minutes since, Sabina declared her love for Conrad Dasipodius to me—to me!”

“And that satisfaction was more than you deserved, if you brayed at my little girl as you are braying at me now. D’ye think I’m deaf?”

“But you will not permit this folly. You will speak to Sabina.”

“It will not be in your favour, nephew; and were it not that I believe your love-fancies had stolen your manners, I would turn you out of my house.”

Otto stood silent, fidgeting at the smart gilt buckle on his hat. The Burgomaster knitted his brow, and tapped it thoughtfully with his finger.

“You think then,” he said presently, “that these two really love each other?”

“Ay. It would seem so,” said Otto chokingly.

“And no favour or prejudice about it?” continued Niklaus, with a half-smile. But Otto made no answer; he rushed out into the Domplatz, and tore home to retail the story of his wrongs to his sister Radegund.

Niklaus von Steinbach meanwhile locked up his jewels in his strong-room, and went in to dinner, his thoughtful mood still on him. Sabina looked pale and tearful.

“Poor little one!” said the old man to himself. “Now if she had but a dear mother to sigh out her pretty troubles to; but fathers are just lumps of wood in affairs of this sort. Sabina,” he said aloud—the young girl started—“what did the Count say to you this morning?”

“He asked me to marry him, Väterchen,” answered Sabina, growing pale.

“And you—what did you say?”

“I said it could not be.”

“And why, prithee?”

“I do not love the Count, Väterchen.”

“Humph! And what may Otto von Steinbach have been talking to you about this long while?”

Sabina looked up imploringly, but she knew her father’s humour, and she faltered: “He asked me to marry him, Väterchen.”

“And you—what did you say?”

“That it was impossible.”

“And why now, mistress?”

“I do not love Otto von Steinbach.”

“Love—what has that to do with it?”

No answer.

“Speak!” thundered the Burgomaster.

“It is everything,” said Sabina, looking down.

“Everything!—everything, is it? Oh these women! these women!” groaned Niklaus. “Child, I gave you credit for sense above the average of your kind, and positively you are crazier than the rest of them.”

And the Burgomaster, turning away, thrust his hands deep down into his coat pockets, and strode to the hearth, where he stood glaring into the logs, and crushing to powder the stray bits that fell smouldering. Sabina burst into tears. “Well, now, what have you to cry about, child?” he asked moodily, still staring at his logs.

“Oh! father dear—don’t. Leave me to myself!” sobbed Sabina.

But von Steinbach had no such intention; this was not at all the issue he wanted to arrive at. “Have you seen aught of Conrad Dasipodius this day or two?” he asked, and with his hands still in his pockets, he stole a keen glance at his daughter from beneath his eyebrows’ grizzled penthouse.

“No!” promptly answered the girl, but the bright blood flew to her cheeks, and in spite of her best efforts, her voice shook.

“That is strange! You have forbidden him the house belike, as you have your other swains?”

No, nor that neither; but she thought her father had; and a very grievous thought it was to her.

“Neither have I forbidden him; but he will not come again yet awhile. I know all about it, child; Conrad Dasipodius is an honourable man, but he is poor, and my Sabina has the dignity of our house to maintain; so I say it cannot be thought of for an instant. I respect this man—I think well of him—very well—I don’t mind saying I do; but he’s poor, poor as a rat, and I say it cannot be thought of for an instant.” Then Niklaus drew himself up, and looking very stern and adamantine; and gathering his gown about him, he strode majestically towards the door, and lifting the arras, said: “Now dry thy tears, child, and when I come back, let it be my own little Lily’s bright face again. There, kiss me then; but these love-nonsenses do so put me out. You’re happy enough with your old father? Hey, kiss me then—hey?” And so the Burgomaster, happy in the conviction that he had warded off a troublesome little domestic worry very successfully, went across the courtyard through the drizzling sleet back to his affairs.

Sabina listened until the last echo of her father’s footsteps died out, then she threw herself down beside the hearth, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping; but at last, when the kind tears would no longer flow, and only hard, cruel sobs shook her quivering frame, she sat and gazed thoughtfully into the fire; but no comfort came to her, the logs were damp and sputtered crossly, and the rude north wind outside whistled a discordant duet with the rattling sleet, and to the girl’s ears their refrain was: “It cannot be thought of for an instant!—It cannot be thought of for an instant!” until it made her head ache sadly, and she laid it down for rest on the old house-cat’s furry pillow of a body, moaning out:

“Oh! Mitte dear, but I love him! I love him so dearly!—what shall I do?”

Then Mitte, gathering her velvet paws still closer up under her comfortable self, began to purr out ever so loudly—“Courage, Sabina, Sabina! Dear heart—Courage!” and the great clock up in the corner began to burr (indeed he had been at it all the afternoon, only Sabina had not heard): “Wait-tic!—wait-tac!” and this so perseveringly, that presently the clock silenced the sputtering logs, until they began to warm through, and make themselves quite pleasant; and then, just for a moment before going to bed, the winter sun looked out good-humouredly, and smiled down the harsh north wind, and quenched the spiteful hail, and by the time night had set in, and the Burgomaster had come back, Sabina looked quite herself again; and Niklaus congratulated himself very highly on his tact. “Ah, these women and their fancies!” thought he. “See now, it has all blown over!” But it had in no wise blown over; only Sabina smiled as she listened to the advice of the steady old clock up in his dark corner: “Wait-tic—wait-tac!”

CHAPTER V.

FATHER CHRETEI’S BEQUEST.

It was marvellous what sterling advice that lumbering old piece of middle-aged machinery gave Sabina von Steinbach, for it actually anticipated the very words of her lover himself when they met again; not this time in the shadowy, stately old dining-hall, but down at the favourite holiday trysting-place by the river, where in summer time it was always so bright and pleasant, but now dreary and chill enough. Sabina had wandered down there all alone to think her thoughts. Had you told her she had done so in some undefined hope of catching a glimpse of the beloved face, she would have been quite indignant; and indeed, she had no reason for supposing that Conrad would be anywhere but in Father Chretei’s studio at that particular midday hour; nevertheless, fate did bring them face to face. When that which she had certainly longed for did actually occur, and her lover stood by her side, her heart beat tumultuously, and looking round, she would have escaped, but Conrad caught her by her trembling hand. “Is it to end like this, Sabina?” he asked.

“My father has forbidden it,” she said.

“Sabina, your heart is not changed—you love me?” and he hung very breathlessly on her answer.

“I love you—now and for ever, Conrad!”

“Ah, dear little one! then all is well, and you will wait till I grow rich for your sake? I know your father would not deny you to me then. You will let no other stand between us, Sabina?”

“Who can stand between us, since I love you, and you love me?” asked the girl, lifting her eyes proudly to his.

“God bless thee, my own!—but listen, little one. There will be rich suitors who can give you now—to-day—to-morrow, fine clothes, jewels, all that ’tis said women love best; whilst I—I can but bid you wait, and so—what then, child?”

“Then!” murmured she smiling. “I will wait! Now let me go.”

“No, no; I have something more. Tell me, what if unkind, jealous tongues spoke ill of me to you—what then?”

“Now, Conrad, how could such a thing be? You who do none wrong,” chided she.

“Dear child, I strive to do none wrong; but the world is very cruel. Still I think it is but my own jealous love for you, which put such thoughts into my heart; I should forget them, should I not?” Then he took her in his arms and gazed intently on her. “It seems to me so good that Heaven has given you to me, darling; I think I could work miracles for your sake. And you? You will be brave for mine?”

Sabina took the slender, nervous hand in hers, and softly caressed it. Suddenly the mathematician snatched it from her, and passed it hurriedly across his brow, as if in pain. Sabina looked up at him in startled enquiry; he smiled and drew her closer to him, but silently; and for a while he seemed lost in thought. At last he said: “Tell me this one thing before we part, child: supposing—supposing all these bright dreams—I dream for you—fade out—supposing any trouble, any affliction, for instance, should come on me——”

“Now what do you mean, Conrad?” interrupted the poor child, gazing up with eyes full of bewilderment into her lover’s eyes, which were looking down at her with an almost mournful eagerness; though they brightened again as she spoke. “How should I know what I mean?” he said—“unless, dear little one, it was that I meant to try you. Forgive me, Sabina.”

“But it is wicked!” pouted she; “you have no right to talk so. Our Mother Odille would say you were tempting the good Providence, and she would give you ten Paters to recite for your sin.”

“And the Mother Odille would be right. It is wicked to meet troubles half way,” acknowledged Conrad humbly; but Sabina, still knitting her brows, said: “It is growing dark, and my father will be wanting me. Farewell, Conrad.”

“Nay, but you have not forgiven me, you sage little woman—nor kissed me,” pleaded the mathematician, with a smile so bright that it reflected itself in Sabina’s face.

“I shall tell my father I met you,” she said, as the last cloud cleared off.

“Do as thy pure heart bids thee, dear one.”

So they parted, and when that evening Sabina sat down with her father for their indispensable game of draughts, she did tell Niklaus of the meeting down by the river, and the Burgomaster said: “Humph—is it your move first, then?” and the wooden clock said: “Wait-tic, wait-tac!” and Sabina was content.

Meantime, the new Horologe was making progress. Chretei Herlin’s pupils had each been assigned some portion of the task. One had the wheels to fashion, another the measuring of the weights, another the damascening of the case, another, whose home lay away in the depths of the Black Forest, was employed on the carving of the figures which were to adorn the wonderful piece of machinery. To Otto von Steinbach was apportioned the work of cleaning and renovating what was fit to be used again of the original clock; and sorely he grumbled at the task. “Look here now,” he said, “who ever set eyes on such abominable clumsiness? What fools people must all have been two hundred years ago! It is enough to make a cat laugh, if only one had not to cry with vexation.” To Conrad Dasipodius, Herlin entrusted the delicate coils and spring-wheels—in short, all that which constitutes the soul and life of a clock.

As for the old man himself, he was obliged to be content with looking on, and directing the labour of the others; for somehow, each day his fingers seemed to grow more stiff and nerveless, and consequently less capable of delicate manipulation, so that at last the superintending of the work actually fell into the hands of Conrad Dasipodius, his senior and favourite pupil; and one day the old monk, laying his hand on Conrad’s shoulder, said to the other young men: “Listen, my children; I feel that death is very near to me, and yet our Horologe is but just begun. Now I have consulted with the Council, and they consent to my desire that Conrad Dasipodius shall succeed me in the carrying out of this great undertaking. Here are the deeds and documents formally making over to Conrad Dasipodius the task assigned to me. The reward goes with it; and the sum I should have received will now, on the completion of the Horologe, be his. Say, do you agree to look upon Conrad Dasipodius as your future master? Are you willing to obey him, as hitherto you have obeyed me; and will you, under his supervision, complete, to the utmost of your ability, the work of the Horologe?”

“We will!” unanimously replied the students and workmen. It went very much against the grain with Otto von Steinbach to say “We will,” and he would readily enough have raised a dissentient voice, but he knew very well that not only his companions one and all, but also the whole town was in favour of Dasipodius being Herlin’s successor, and it was consequently more than useless for him to demur, so he contented himself with explaining to his friends, that as usual, favour and prejudice were prevalent in Strassburg.

So the work went bravely on. Father Chretei, still in his old seat by the monastery casement, would watch his children, as he always called them, at their work; and his eyes would rest proudly on Dasipodius, and a smile would lighten up his worn face as, from time to time, the student would turn to consult him on some intricate detail, for the old monk’s brain was as active as ever it had been, and only the tired-out, fragile body refused to work any more.

One morning, as usual, a lay-brother entered the studio to call the monk to early mass. Chretei sat alone in the silent chamber; the casement had blown open, and the snowflakes drifting in, had softly enshrouded the old man’s hand as it rested on the parchment outspread before him. His dusky cowl had fallen slightly back, and the lamp at his side had gone out, but the pale wintry dawn, now peering up almost into the crevices of the vaulted roof, dimly illumined his pale features; yet, as that lay-brother came closer, he could see a bright light there, so unearthly, so rapt, that he fancied some grand new thought must have suddenly thrilled through his brain, and he paused; but Chretei moved not.

“It is time for Holy Mass. Come, Father Chretei,” said he, in a low, awe-stricken tone, and gently touched the old man’s hand; but he started back, for it was ice-cold. One greater than that poor lay-brother had been there before him, and said: “Come!” and obedient to that summons, the mathematician’s meek spirit had gone to rest for evermore in the Eternal Presence.

CHAPTER VI.

RADEGUND’S INSPIRATION.

When the good Strassburgers are asked who built their magnificent cathedral, they are apt to say that it was Erwin von Steinbach, and that what he left unfinished, was completed after his death by Sabina von Steinbach, the architect’s daughter. Furthermore, they will point out with no little pride, two statues of great beauty over the south doorway, carved by this Sabina’s own fair hands. Erwin and his daughter, however, who lived in the fourteenth century, only added to and beautified the main building, of which a great portion already existed when Charlemagne—nay, when Pepin le Bref was king. In the eleventh century, Bishop Werner of Hapsburg further improved it, and from time to time, interior and exterior adornments were added; but it was reserved for Erwin von Steinbach to perfect the beauty of the glorious fabric. It was Erwin who erected the west front and the curious tower, with its winding staircase rising to such a giddy height; but ere this work was done, Death laid his hand on the old architect, and his son John, and Sabina his daughter, reigned in his stead.

Tradition said that Sabina’s life had been an unhappy one. A passionate, unrequited love had for a time deprived her of her high intellect, and finally driven her into a convent, where at last she ended her wretched existence by her own hand. The tale went, that the ghost of the sculptress walked the cathedral at midnight; and many a time and oft, successive sacristans had fled in affright from the sanctuary, averring, with much shivering, that the white, bloodstained robes of the unhappy woman were plainly visible amid the delicate tracery and fretwork of the choir.

It is not, however, with the architect and his daughter that this story has to do; years must carry the gentle reader on apace. Von Steinbach is a time-honoured name in Strassburg now. Is not, indeed, Niklaus von Steinbach its Burgomaster? and look, too, at Radegund von Steinbach, the Burgomaster’s niece, in whom, after fitfully smouldering through two centuries, the old genius has burst forth in all its brilliancy. A clever artist is Radegund von Steinbach. Some years ago her strong will and adventurous spirit took her to Italy, where she studied in the schools of Venice and Padua, living there her strange, haughty, independent life,—dreaming before Cimabue and the Bellini, catching inspiration from Fra Angelico, lost in contemplation before Raphael’s angels and madonnas,—then at last coming home again to old Strassburg city, she established herself as an artist in the house built by Erwin himself, and her brother Otto’s by inheritance; and became a celebrity. Her studio was the haunt of the dilettanti. Many a rich burgher and noble lady would come to Radegund von Steinbach that she might paint their portraits, and a pretty price she charged them for her work; but they did not mind that; it was quite the thing just then to be painted by this clever artist, and one acquired much additional lustre from it in the fashionable world. It was not, however, all pure undiluted pleasure to her clients, for Radegund was not as a rule affable or conciliating, and it was by no means a comfortable process to sit for some hours in her scornful presence, very often without the interchange of a dozen words; but then, as they said, Radegund was “peculiar, a genius,” and what not, which was supposed amply to condone for all the airs and graces it was her humour to indulge in. On the face of it, one might have marvelled why it was that Radegund condescended to make pictures of such commonplace mortals as these citizens and citizenesses, but that would have been to betray a very superficial acquaintance with this woman’s character; she worshipped notoriety, and she found that fame and notice came to her more prodigally through a portrayal of broad Teutonic countenances, and of portly bedizened stomachers, than through the really artistic and beautiful work towards which her good angel naturally inclined her.

Now it happened that this good angel contrived to bring Radegund’s fame before the notice of the Bishop of Strassburg, and ere long the good man, ever ready to encourage native talent and industry, had commissioned her to paint a picture altar-piece for the chapel of Saint Laurence, in the north aisle of the cathedral, and Radegund produced a work which crowned her fame. Half Elsass—nay, connoisseurs came from all parts of Germany and France to see the famous Saint Laurence, and to go away filled with admiration which, in countless instances, was extended to the handsome artist herself. Those enthralled by her genius offered her large sums to leave Strassburg and to establish herself in Paris or other famous capitals of Europe; those enchained by her beauty offered marriage and titles; but Radegund would listen to none of these proposals; she haughtily declared herself content with her present condition, and said that no consideration would ever again induce her to leave her native city. As to the altarpiece, Radegund had thrown her whole soul and spirit into it. She had represented the Martyr standing beneath a graceful Moorish arch, his dark robes falling to his bare sandalled feet, waves of dusky auburn hair, streaked here and there with golden, flowed back from a brow illumined by a marvellous intellectual glory. The firm, decisive lines of the beautiful mouth and chin were softened by an impassioned sweetness; but the supreme loveliness of that picture reigned in the eyes—deep, earnest, somewhat heavy-lidded, unfathomable eyes they were, with a certain sad wistfulness about them, and with the fire of thought brilliantly, eagerly, steadfastly burning. There was, too, a world of character expressed in the slender but manly hands, and in the slightly-drooping attitude of the tall figure.

Many of the Strassburgers declared that they could see in the Saint Laurence a certain sort of resemblance to their gifted fellow-citizen, the Professor Conrad Dasipodius, and one or two remarked as much to Radegund; but the artist always tossed her beautiful head, and said: “Like Dasipodius, indeed! and what, forsooth, had she to do with Dasipodius? As well say that she, Radegund von Steinbach, was like that awesome figure of Atè in the justice chamber of the Rath-haus!”

And so she was—sometimes; yet this resemblance between Conrad and the Saint Laurence was curious. Sabina von Steinbach, for instance, must surely have noticed it, else why did she so invariably betake herself to the Saint Laurence chapel to tell her daily rosary in, before any other quiet spot in the cathedral? and what a glorious thing to be an artist Sabina thought it was! “If I could paint like that,” she would murmur to herself, “I’d make books full of Conrads; but for me—poor, stupid, every-day me—why, when I even try to remember how his dear face looks, it just goes away altogether! And yet I love him; while Radegund—ah! now, if Conrad had but loved Radegund, and Radegund had loved Conrad”—and then Sabina paused in her cogitations, to try and imagine to herself how one could be a living woman and not love Conrad; but hardly succeeding to her satisfaction, she went on: “Well there would, I mean, have been two wonderful people together then; while I can only spin and keep house, and make marchpane and such like. It’s true Conrad says never was such marchpane as mine—but to be an artist! Oh, ’tis a grand thing!—and yet, somehow, I don’t believe Conrad admires Radegund a bit. Now that is so odd—poor Radegund!”

Rich little Sabina!

Meanwhile the critics continued to be enthusiastic in their praise of the picture.—“Exquisite! wonderful! charming! marvellous light and shade!—the artist has surpassed herself! Nothing short of inspiration could have produced such a work!”

Among these worshippers at Radegund’s shrine was Bruno Wolkenberg, the surgeon; many looked upon him as the favoured aspirant for her hand, but lookers-on do not always rightly understand these things. It is true that Radegund accorded Bruno favours which the common herd sighed for in vain, such as lending an ear to, and even asking his opinion concerning the effects or groupings in her pictures; but then Bruno Wolkenberg was a walking Encyclopædia of historical and traditional lore. Then too—albeit that in the healing art, surgery was his strong point—he was a very clever chemist, and had discovered many little secrets for the improvement of colours and pigment-mixing, greatly valued by Radegund, who was too true an artist ever to pass by anything which might add to the greater excellence of her pictures; and the surgeon was proud indeed when she would make use of his talents; and his heart, where this woman reigned sole empress, thrilled proudly when leading him to her studio, she unveiled for him her finished chef-d’œuvre.

“You like my poor picture then, Master Bruno?” said Radegund, watching his face.

“Like!” echoed the surgeon; “that is no word for it—it is glorious! It is inspired!”

A sigh escaped Radegund’s breast, but she was silent.

“It is the face of a demigod!” went on Bruno, clasping his hands.

“You are a false critic, Bruno Wolkenberg, or I have utterly failed in my conception. I aimed at creating a saint, and you talk to me of demigods!”

“They are one and the same, Radegund, and you know it,” said Bruno: “you, who acknowledge that the Divine fire burned in the souls of those we call heathens——”

“There, there, Bruno! I know you want to be saying that Aristotle was every whit as good as Saint Augustine, don’t you? Well, do I gainsay it? But still, it is so hard to be told that my poor Saint Laurence here, is nothing greater than a Jason or a Hercules. I flattered myself,” continued she, gazing lovingly at her work, “that I had contrived to throw into those eyes a glimpse of that hopeful serenity which, after all, even you and I, Bruno, must own, seems to be exclusively a Christian heritage.”

“And so you have,” rapturously exclaimed Bruno; “you are a magician, Radegund! there is no need to write, as some have to write, beneath their pictures: ‘This is a saint’: your exquisite art has concealed art, and all the world can tell at a glance that this is a man—not, mark you, a perfect man; a Christus Redemptor, whose divinity, even in its humility, asserts itself—but here is a fallible humanity, and none but you, Radegund, could have limned those sweet, sad eyes, with their luminous, far-away look, seeming to gaze on visions beyond mortal ken. And yet they are true to nature; for I have seen such eyes,” added Bruno, turning a sudden glance on Radegund: “yes—I know; they are—they are the eyes of Conrad Dasipodius!”

“And no others,” said Radegund, in calm tones.

“An excellent model, truly!” said Bruno, with the faintest ring of jealousy in his voice. “The glance of those eyes must have lingered long in the brain which has thus reproduced them.”

“It would be a poor artist who could pass unheeding by such excellence,” answered Radegund, her own eyes now riveted on the painting.

“That is true—dear old Conrad,” assented the surgeon; “and yet,” he went on, as though thinking his thoughts aloud, “it is so strange—so passing strange!”

“What is?” sharply asked Radegund.

“That eyes so full of expression should be—should be——” and then Wolkenberg stopped abruptly.

“Should be what?” breathlessly demanded Radegund, catching at his sleeve.

“Nothing,” said Bruno, disengaging himself.

“Fool!” said Radegund; “what was it you were maundering about this minute?”

“Nothing—I do not know what I was saying”: and the unfortunate surgeon’s face flushed to the roots of his sunny curls.

“No; there never was such an idiot as you,” angrily retorted Radegund. “Go home, Bruno; I am tired of you. I fancy sometimes that you have more sense than those others calling themselves men, who come dallying their time away here: but not one—no, not one of them would insult me like this.”

“How, Radegund,” implored Bruno, “tell me how have I offended you? what did I say? what have I done?”

“Done—but it is so like you, Bruno Wolkenberg, beginning a sentence, and then stopping right in the middle. You are so boorish—so ill-bred.”

“But that is better,” pleaded Bruno, “than to betray secrets.”

CHAPTER VII.

“THE BEST OF ALL WORDS.”

A secret! Radegund was after all but a daughter of Eve; and Bruno was utterly undone. If this honest surgeon had a secret, why did he say so?

“A secret?” echoed Radegund; “you are a brave one to keep a secret! Why, you have told it already.”

“Surely no,” said Bruno, in a startled voice. “What did I say? Tell me, Radegund—in pity tell me what I said?”

“I understood you,” she answered, in calm even tones, “that Conrad Dasipodius was blind.”

“No—by Heaven! I did not say that. I swear I did not,” said the distracted surgeon.

“Now, Bruno Wolkenberg,” and Radegund’s tones were still calm and measured, “it is so useless quibbling with me.”

“But,”—said Bruno.

“There is no but. You have merely confirmed my suspicions. It is not news to me; I have watched Conrad Dasipodius at his work again and again.”

“And a marvellously interesting subject he appears to be to you,” said Bruno stiffly.

“I have already told you so,” answered the artist.

“Farewell—good-night, Radegund,” said Bruno, making a wretched imitation of Radegund’s tones and manner. “I have an appointment. I must go. Success to your picture.”

Wolkenberg was distressed and annoyed; in the first place, this woman had stolen from him a secret which he would rather have cut his own skilful right hand off, than have let slip; and then, moreover, he felt very jealous and angry. “It was all true, doubtless, that Dasipodius had centred his affections elsewhere; but what, forsooth, was that pretty little lily of a Sabina beside this glowing rose of a Radegund? What Ulysses could withstand such a syren, let Penelope be ever so fair?” And then Bruno, turning to take, what he fondly persuaded himself was to be a farewell glance, again encountered the glamour of those eyes, and the dangerous witchery of that voice.

“Bruno,” she murmured. “Leaving me like this?”

“You have stolen my honour, Radegund,” said Bruno, striving to hold his own.

“Ah,” said she lightly, “still harping on that nonsense about your friend Dasipodius? Why, you foolish Bruno, did not I tell you I had already guessed the mighty secret long ago?”

“That is all very well,” grumbled Bruno, in slightly mollified tones, “but you were not sure. Now it is utterly in your hands; and if it were known, it might be Conrad’s ruin. Swear to me, Radegund, that you will keep this secret.”

“There, there—why should I not,” she said. “What should I do with it? Am I a gossip?”

Wolkenberg consoled himself with the reflection that she was not. In all Strassburg there was not a woman whom the artist could call friend. Those of the gentler half of the community who were not jealous of her, feared her; while one and all pronounced her “peculiar”; and Radegund, always frankly declaring that masculine society was pleasanter to her than all the female acquaintance in Strassburg, did not in the least put herself out of the way to remove any impressions of her it pleased her compeers to form.

“Am I a scandal-loving old wife, or a chattering schoolmaiden?” she went on. “Do you really think so poorly of me as that? And I have so often told myself that I might call you friend—perhaps my only friend—Bruno,” and Radegund gently laid her hand on the surgeon’s sleeve.

“My life—Radegund, would it were something dearer than friend.”

“Nay,” answered Radegund, “it is the best of all words; there is no other so true, so honest, believe me, Bruno. Your friendship is very dear to me,” and Radegund’s eyes glistened truthfully and frankly up into Bruno’s, but the surgeon sighed.

“You put me off like this,” he said.

“Ah, true,” answered the wily Radegund. “Yes, we have strayed from our subject. Well, Master Wolkenberg, I will keep your secret if——”

“No,” said Bruno stoutly, “there must be no conditions.”

“Yes—yes—listen now, Bruno; tell me this one thing, only this:—how has it come about, this blindness of your friend’s? What is the cause of it?”

“Oh,” said the surgeon, with a relieved air, “that is easily answered—overwork and anxiety. Such things will kill a man sometimes.”

“But anxiety about what? About the Horologe?”

“Yes, yes; and if I’m not mistaken, there’s something of the woman in it as well. Folks like to blame this cause, and that cause, when things go wrong with a fellow, but there’s generally a woman at the bottom of it, Radegund, let the top be what it may.”

“But Conrad Dasipodius has such a superior mind,” argued Radegund.

“Precisely why it’s all the worse with him. Extremes meet, and the more superior-minded a man is, the more heaven, or purgatory, or—somewhere, seems to let a woman make a fool of him.”

“Then you think it is this affair with my cousin Sabina that worries him?”

“Yes I do. If a man loves a girl, and things go against his marrying her, isn’t that a worry? And there’s nothing in the world like worry for setting nerves wrong.”

“But still, it is so curious—do explain to me, dear Bruno——”

“No,” said Bruno resolutely; “if I were to explain all night, I should not be able to make it clear to you, Radegund, nor for the matter of that, to myself. We surgeons can only say this is the effect of that, which is the cause of this and the other, and so we go on travelling in our circle. It is true, that years make this circle a little larger, and a little larger, but God only sees outside it. Maybe hundreds of years hence, when we are all dead and gone, He may let those who come after us, see outside it too.”

“But in this case—Conrad’s I mean—everything may all be the other way. It is just possible he may not think the game worth the candle,” said Radegund.

“Nay,” said Bruno; “if a man find his happiness in his game, the candle may cost what it will.”

“But then he may not find happiness in it,” she insisted.

“Who can tell?” said Bruno, beginning to grow provokingly vague again. “Sabina von Steinbach is pretty and winsome, as so many of our German maidens are, but——”

“But what?” asked Radegund, with ill-repressed excitement.

“Well, she is not my style,” he said, gazing rapturously on the dark-haired beauty before him. “If I had lived in the old hero-days, Radegund, I believe I should have admired Brunhilde far more than Kriemhilde. One always fancies Kriemhilde fair, you know.”

“And you would have been wise, Bruno,” said Radegund, laughing harshly, “for all the world knows Kriemhilde grew into a vixen, despite her golden hair and heaven-blue eyes.”

“Was there not a cause, Radegund?” asked Bruno, in a grave voice.

“Oh, there! do leave those old-world queens and heroes alone,” she said testily; “I was speaking of——”

“Yes, I know,” said Bruno; “and I—nay, Radegund, do not tempt me to forswear myself. We have discussed the subject far too long already. Bury it now, let it be as though we had never spoken of it.” But Radegund did not answer. “Let me kiss those lips, Radegund, once—this once, and it shall be a token between us that you and I have plotted together to smooth by our silence this path of Conrad’s, which is so rough and hard. By heaven! but he is brave: there is not a nobler heart living! We will stand by him and help him—shall it be so, Radegund?”

“Ay,” said Radegund, with her gaze transfixed on the canvas, and then Bruno tore himself away, but his heart was brimming over with a new hopefulness; Radegund had never before been to him, as she had been to-night, so gentle, so womanly and tender, almost caressing. Did she then love him after all? and was the day at last coming when—— “Oh, Radegund!” murmured the surgeon again and again to himself, as he threaded his way through the dark, narrow streets, ankle-deep in the wet slush of a temporary thaw, “Oh, Radegund, my queen! my queen! Radegund!”

And that night it seemed to Bruno Wolkenberg as though the slippery old pavement were of shining gold. But Radegund von Steinbach sat in the lonely studio, before the Saint Laurence, until twilight became pitchy darkness; and still, when the curfew rang out, she had not stirred, but with her face buried in her folded arms, sat brooding—brooding.

CHAPTER VIII.

“OH DARK, DARK, DARK, WITHOUT ALL HOPE OF DAY!”

It was a sad day for the monks of Saint Thomas, when they bore their brother to his quiet grave in the little grass-grown God’s-acre attached to their chapel. The Bishop and his chapter had offered a prouder resting-place, in the glorious cathedral itself, for the body of the dead mathematician; but like Saint Swithin, Chretei Herlin had begged that he might be laid only “where the bright dews glisten, and the rains of heaven fall”.

When the last wreath of flowers, white as the snow which was falling, had been reverently laid on the lowly mound, and each of all that crowd, lately gathered about the grave, had gone down again to his world, ecclesiastical or secular, Conrad Dasipodius lingered on there alone. Alone! his heart yearned bitterly towards the good friend who had gone from him—for friend, in that word’s fullest and completest sense, the monk had always been to him. It had been he who had tended and fostered the earliest germ of the boy’s talent, until the bright blossom had begun to burst forth; and then he had striven to place it before the eyes of men, that they too might look on its great excellence, else perchance it might in its too great modesty, have blushed on unseen amid surrounding mediocrity, and Strassburg would have left unrecorded the mathematician’s name in her long list of illustrious children. Still, however much disposed to admire, the world is so utterly incapable of that sympathy, that reflection as it were of a man’s own soul in the being of another, which goes so far towards the perfecting of real friendship; for this, Dasipodius had been alone able to turn to Chretei Herlin. Whenever some bold new thought had flashed across his brain, it had not seemed to be thoroughly and truly his own, until he had shared it with Father Chretei; and often indeed the sunlight of the old man’s profound knowledge and long experience had illumined and matured the conceptions of his pupil. But now Father Chretei was dead, and all that free interchange of thought must cease for ever; and who might replace the dead?

Moreover, Conrad’s very superiority isolated him in the midst of his fellow craftsmen; it was declared on all sides, both by those who understood such matters, and by those who did not, that Professor Dasipodius was their leading mathematician, and for such an one to betray ordinary humanity’s weakness, for such an one to appear to be yearning for sympathy, much more for encouragement, would have been to cast him from his reputation’s newly-earned niche for ever. No, Conrad Dasipodius had to pay the penalty of fame; and yet he did stand especially in need of sympathy and counsel, just at that time when the only one who could have entered into his perplexities had been taken from him. Just at that crisis when, above all other turning points in his life, he most needed an adviser.

“And yet,” he murmured to himself, “it is as well mayhap, it would have been a grief to Father Chretei; and after all, he could have done nothing for me. Ah! what—who can do anything for me? Great God! What crime have I committed that Thou shouldst visit me thus? Can it be indeed, as some would have us believe, that I have pried too deeply into Thy mighty secrets? No, no! for it is Thou Thyself Who hast bidden us increase our talents tenfold; and yet ere this—my one poor gift is ripe—Thou wouldst take from me all—all. Oh! if I might but come to thee again, Father Chretei. Now, before this world grows dark, quite, quite dark to me! Is there no mercy, no pity left in Heaven? Let me die now, Father Chretei—Father Chretei! My God, to think that it must come!”

The mathematician flung himself on the newly-made grave, and gripped the cold, hard snow in a frenzy of grief and despair. His hair fell trailing along the ground, and his slender frame seemed almost rent asunder with bursting sobs; while those grand, earnest eyes—not alone little Sabina’s dearest pride, but the admiration of all who looked on their marvellous intelligence and brilliancy, were dim, grievously dim, with tears of bitterest mental anguish. It is always terrible to see a man weep, and to weep like this! The good Strassburgers would certainly have not recognised their calm, stately Professor Dasipodius in this despairing figure outstretched on the monk’s snow-covered grave.

The hours passed, and still the young man lay all unheeding there; heat or cold seemed alike to him, for he had but one haunting miserable thought that shut out all sensation of aught else, and no comforting word came to bid him go home and take heart again, only the longer he thought, the deeper grew his despair, and athwart its utter darkness shone no gleam of consolation. Darkness within—without; darkness everywhere, and for evermore!

Noon had long since come and gone. The brilliant clearness of the winter day had already faded, and a few snowflakes began noiselessly to light amid the folds of the mathematician’s long black cloak. The candles burning in the chapel for the departed monk, began to glimmer out more brightly through the windows, and presently the brethren of St. Thomas passed in winding procession up the narrow pathway towards the little edifice, where they were going to sing the Vespers for the Dead; but Chretei Herlin’s grave lay some yards off the beaten path, and none of the monks chanced to see Dasipodius.

“Requiem æternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis,”

sounded their antiphon gently through the crisp frosty air upon Conrad’s ear.

“Amen!” assented the response; but if blessed Mother Mary herself had stood by his side then, and whispered, “Peace,” he would have said, “There is no peace,” and thought she mocked him.

“Conrad Dasipodius!” said a voice.

If the mathematician heard, he recked not to answer. “Conrad Dasipodius, what do you here?” now asked the voice, and unquestionably it was a woman’s voice.

Then Dasipodius stirred and roused himself to look up, and as he looked, he passingly wondered how long he must have lain there: for it seemed to have grown so dark, and he could only discern the faintest outlines of a woman’s dress and figure.

“Do you not know me, Master Dasipodius? You cannot see me?” said the woman. “It is I—Radegund.”

“Radegund—Radegund von Steinbach?” asked he, “and alone here at this hour?” Then he strove to rise upon his feet, but a sudden giddiness seized him, and a pain, sharp as a dagger-thrust, shot through his forehead, and all faint and cramped with the cold, he had great difficulty in recovering himself. “You have been belated,” he said presently; “you will let me see you safe home again, Mistress Radegund?”

Smiling with something of a patronising air, the woman replied, “Nay, our ways are not the same; besides I do not fear, and it is none so late.”

“It must be near five of the clock,” returned Dasipodius.

“Why, ’tis not yet four,” she answered, scanning his countenance curiously.

“Then are we to have another snowstorm; for it grows dark as night?”

The woman came closer to him now, and ventured to peer still more searchingly into his face. “Cannot you see me, Master Dasipodius?” asked she.

He started slightly. “See you? Oh yes, certainly; I can see the outlines of your gown—quite plainly. Yet, pardon me,” he added, recovering something of his natural manner, “that makes it but the clearer to me, that it is time for fair ladies to be safe indoors.”

But Radegund vouchsafed no answer; her piercing black eyes only scrutinized his face more eagerly than ever. “Cannot you see me, indeed?” she asked.

“Heilige Maria! No, I say, not clearly. How should I? Am I a cat, that I should see in the dark?” he said, with an impatient laugh.

“But indeed, Master Dasipodius,” persisted she, “it is none so dark.”

The flush which had risen to the mathematician’s pale cheek when he had first found himself observed, died quite out now, and was succeeded by an ashy paleness. “Not dark? not dark?” he faltered uneasily.

“No, the sun is not yet set. It is none so dark,” said Radegund, in clear hard monotone; then she waited, calmly silent.

“Not dark?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Nay, but you are jesting? Oh! Radegund, do not trifle with me,” pleaded the mathematician, wildly clasping his hands across his eyes.

“Do I ever trifle?” she asked, proudly drawing herself to her full height; then she added in a slow, clear, hard voice—“Conrad Dasipodius, I know your secret; I came here to tell you I knew it—You are blind!”

“Blind!”

The mathematician, stretching out his hands with an imploring gesture, staggered forward; Radegund would have caught him in her arms, but he thrust her aside, and fell once more with a heavy groan on the grave.

“Requiem æternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua dona eis,”

came the antiphon from the chapel.

“Amen!” was the solemn response.

CHAPTER IX.

A WOMAN’S GUILE.

Radegund stood for a while gazing silently down on the man at her feet, and in her eyes was such a strange gleam of mingled love and hate and triumph, that it was hard to determine which passion predominated there.

“Oh, Conrad!” at last she murmured, kneeling down beside him on the chill snow; “Conrad, look up. It is such agony to see you like this. Do not turn from me—from Radegund, your—your friend—Conrad!”

The artist’s voice grew strangely gentle as she bent over him and laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder; but the mathematician shivered at her touch, and clutching for support at the beam of a tall grave cross beside him, he raised himself to his full height and turned on Radegund. His eyes seemed to confront hers now, and they looked as ever they had looked, so clear, so gravely intent, that Radegund’s bold gaze quailed beneath them, and she thought that indeed it must have been he who had jested with her; but alas! although not totally—not stone blind—there only floated poor dim shadows before Conrad’s eyes now; chapel and grave-cross, the clouds overhead, the snow under foot, Radegund’s pale face,—were veiled for him in one confused distracting haze.

“Radegund,” he cried, “it is false—I am not blind, by Heaven no, I am not blind. I see you—as you stand there! Look, I am touching your mantle,” and stretching out a wavering, uncertain hand, Dasipodius raised the border of Radegund’s cloak; but she only laughed scornfully, and taking from her breast a small illuminated missal, opened it haphazard, and thrust it before his eyes.

“Not blind? not blind?” cried she; “then tell me what is written there. Read—you cannot. No, Conrad Dasipodius, you may delude the poor fools down yonder; but none ever yet deceived Radegund von Steinbach.”

“And Bruno—has Bruno indeed dared to betray this to you—you?” exclaimed the mathematician, again turning on her like some wild despairing animal at bay; and in that last word was a contemptuous echo, which grated on Radegund’s ear. “There is but one in all Strassburg knows of this—Bruno Wolkenberg. No, no,” he added, as though speaking to himself, “it is not possible.”

“Oh, yes!” softly murmured Radegund; “’tis possible, Master Dasipodius, quite possible. For love, crimes have been committed.”

“And what is this but a crime?” burst forth Dasipodius in bitter wrath. “By Heaven! for a physician to babble of secrets entrusted to his keeping, is every whit as foul as for one to betray the secrets of his confessional! For such-like deeds, priests have been unfrocked, and I will have this treachery of Wolkenberg’s nailed to the pillory door, that all Strassburg may read. And to think that he should have told it to you, mistress—you.”

“Ay, even to me, Radegund, who am no more to you than the snow under your feet. It is so strange, is it not, Master Dasipodius, that Bruno Wolkenberg should have chosen me—me, from whom you turn so disgustfully away.”

“Ay, it is strange, and I would have trusted Bruno with untold gold,” said the mathematician, musingly. “And now, mistress,” he said, turning coldly on Radegund, “what use are you going to make of this miserable secret? It is a fine piece of woman’s gossip, no doubt. A rich by-word to echo through the city! By all that is sacred, I will have you pilloried for this dishonourable thing, you and your paramour. Shame—shame!”

Radegund writhed, and her pale face grew bloodless and grey, but controlling her voice, she said, in calm unruffled tones: “I forgive you that speech, Conrad Dasipodius, because you know—you must know—that this Bruno Wolkenberg is nothing to me, nothing beyond a good friend, a faithful spaniel——”

“The spaniel shall be flogged——”

“And let all Strassburg know what you would keep hidden? No; I will save you from yourself. Listen, my friend, you are so mistaken; you are unjust to Bruno Wolkenberg, and to me.”

Dasipodius turned impatiently away, but Radegund spoke on: “Listen, I tell you, I suspected something of this blindness. Bruno—nay, do not start; you would never be really angered with him, your friend, poor Bruno; why, Bruno would die to serve you, and think his life well given, and so should I,” she added, dropping her voice softly; “and yet, Bruno——”

“Go on,” interrupted Dasipodius sternly, “you were saying you suspected that my sight was failing me.”

“I did,” she answered, “and I merely said as much to Bruno. Nothing more, on my woman’s honour.”

“Honour! ’tis well, indeed, for you to talk of honour, who have stolen Bruno’s like this,” retorted Conrad with heaving breast.

“Nay, but for your sake it was, indeed. ’Twas all for your sake,” murmured Radegund; “I loved you, Conrad——”

A hot burning flush suffused the young man’s brow.

“Oh, do not mistake me,” continued she, narrowly watching the play of his countenance. “I loved you, of course, as a maiden should; as a sister might love a brother. I should be but a poor romantic fool to love you after any other fashion? Should I not now—Conrad?” And with bated breath she waited his answer.

“Nay, do not mock yourself and me, Mistress von Steinbach,” stammered the mathematician; “it is unseemly.”

Again the artist’s cheek blanched to a sickly whiteness. “I say I had a friend’s sympathy for you, and I have been thinking so much, too, of Cousin Sabina.”

“And what of Sabina?” he said.

“Well, your little Sabina—she is yours. Is it not so?—confess now.”

“Mine!” groaned the mathematician. “Oh, misery! misery!”

A shade of colour returned to Radegund’s cheeks; and lifting her dark eyes she tried again to read that troubled face. “Do you indeed love Sabina von Steinbach?” she asked.

“As the light loves the sun.”

Radegund shrank back, and once again the faint flush forsook her cheeks, and left her face deathlike. “Could none be to you as she is?”

But the mathematician did not seem to hear her voice, and it was to himself he cried out bitterly, “Sabina, my own, my darling, must I lose thee for ever?”

“And why for ever?”

“Because you, woman,” he cried fiercely, “have blazoned my affliction abroad; and henceforth the world will deem me little better than an idiot—a blind idiot. I thought to have kept this terrible secret to myself, until the Clock should be finished.”

“To what end?” asked Radegund.

“Then I should have been rich, comparatively rich; the reward is high for the making of this Clock, as you know well; and even if a man be blind, and deaf and dumb to boot, so only he be rich, the world thinks him perfect enough,” said Conrad, with a hollow mocking laugh.

“And Sabina, what of her? What would she think?”

“Hold your peace about her! Are there fiends abroad in woman’s shape, that I am to be tortured like this?” said Conrad, nervously clenching his slender hands. “I had not thought—I had not foreseen, I say—it seemed to me that this visitation of mine might perhaps remain always what it has so long been—a mere dimness of sight, which I have taught myself to bear patiently—ay, almost even to forget; and had not you crossed my path, I would have died ere this secret should have been noised abroad.”

“And you would have hidden it—how? Tell me that. How was it possible?”

“Because the good God has been with me,” answered the mathematician, reverently baring his head; “because, while my sense of sight has been gradually forsaking me, my sense of touch has been so sharpened, that I can do without my eyes; nay, I have become so skilful, that not one has detected this growing dimness of sight; blindness it has not been. None would have detected it but for you, mistress,” and then the mathematician turned on his heel, but Radegund caught him by the cloak. “Oh, Conrad, stay one moment—have some pity; listen, listen! I call the blessed Saints to witness, that your secret has never passed my lips.”

Dasipodius paused. “Do you swear this?” he said.

Casting herself on her knees beside the grave-cross, she laid her hand on it, and again solemnly swore that she had not betrayed him.

“So, that is well,” and Dasipodius uttered a sigh of relief.

“Do you forgive?” murmured Radegund. “Say you forgive me, Conrad.”

“Ay,” he said, “I forgive you. Your Eve’s curiosity tempted you to this, you poor woman; but for him who calls himself a man, for Bruno Wolkenberg——”

“And what of Bruno Wolkenberg,” demanded Radegund. “Touch but one hair of his head, and this very night your secret shall be in every mouth in Strassburg.”

“And is it so that Radegund von Steinbach keeps her vows? What did you swear anon?”

“I swore I had not told it. I did not swear I would not tell it.”

“There is no match for a woman’s guile,” said Conrad, his lip curling with a scornful smile. “And the price of your future reticence, mistress?” he asked.

“Pardon for Bruno Wolkenberg. And for me, a few moments’ space to hear me to the end.”

“Say what you will, but say it quickly,” answered Conrad dreamily, beginning to wrap himself up in his own thoughts once more. “I would fain be at my work again,” and he pointed down towards the city. “There is much to be done.”

“Ay,” repeated Radegund, “there is much to be done, and how are you to do it?”

“Oh, Radegund, has it become your mission to torment me. Have I not told you that my affliction was not too heavy to bear? and for this—this deeper shadow which Heaven has but now cast over me, well, it will pass away again; it is perhaps but temporary—the effect of this cold, and of long watching. Bruno has often said it might be so; he has told you thus much, Radegund?” asked the mathematician wistfully, and forgetting for the moment all his indignation.

“Bruno says that any undue agitation would render you the more incurably blind; but it is all the same,” she continued, in hard, cruel tones, “he holds out no hope for you in the end, Conrad Dasipodius.”

A heavy sigh escaped Dasipodius, and then, with a sad smile, he turned to the artist, and held out his hand.

“I know,” he said, “I understand it all now; and Bruno has been too gentle-hearted to tell me this himself. Poor old Bruno—but he was wrong, quite wrong, if only that he caused me to be angered with you, Mistress Radegund, I would not have had this. I pray you forgive me,” said Dasipodius humbly.

As Radegund laid her hand in Conrad’s, her stern, pale face softened, and flushed with a rare glory.

“So then,” he said, “you will help me to guard my secret?”

“I would help you more than that,” she said, with her hand still in his; “I would help your work. My eyes shall be your eyes.”

“You are very good, Mistress Radegund,” he said.

“But you do not accept my aid? You are too proud to be dependent on a woman?”

“Thanks to the good God, I need be dependent on woman nor man neither; but I shall not forget your goodness,” and he raised her hand to his lips.

“Goodness,” sighed Radegund, “goodness plays a sorry part in this; but we will not quarrel about words. You and I are fellow-workers, Master Dasipodius, and my poor aid is at your service, and then, when our Horologe is done, there will be bright things in store for you and—and Cousin Sabina, will there not?”

“We dare not ever look too far into the future,” said Conrad gravely, and in tones of deep sadness.

“The Scripture says: ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’” said Radegund, in a mocking voice. “Do you mean that, Master Dasipodius?”

“I meant no such thing,” he answered coldly; “and now, mistress, since as you say our paths are not the same, I will bid you farewell, and God speed.”

“Till we meet again,” and Radegund, gathering her hood about her head, glided away through the now deepening shadows.

“Give you good evening, Master Dasipodius,” said a voice at Conrad’s side, and it was the voice of Niklaus von Steinbach. “How is it you did not see me? better employed, hey? but this is a dreary spot for a rendezvous with fair damozels, hey?”

“There has been no rendezvous, Master Niklaus,” answered Conrad.

“By the blessed St. Laurence, I could have sworn I saw a kirtle at this very spot. Yes, there it goes now, down yonder among the gravestones.”

“That is your niece Radegund, Burgomaster. She and I have been speaking together; we met by chance.”

“Oh, ha, h’m!—I see. Good night to you, Master Dasipodius,” and the Burgomaster passed on in the wake of his niece, whistling softly to himself, and knitting his brows in a puzzled way. He did not know whether to be more well-pleased or nettled that that little affair between Conrad and Sabina was seeming to vanish “quite like smoke,” as he put it to himself. “But this niece of mine—ah, there’ll be no playing fast and loose with her. Well, well, I suppose they’ll suit each other. Radegund’s a splendid genius, no doubt, she only wants keeping straight; and Dasipodius will be making his way in the world one of these fine days.” Niklaus paused and sighed. “Well, well, perhaps it’s best as it is, and yet I’d have sworn——” The Burgomaster was fitting his big key into the door of his house now, and his cogitations were interrupted; but when the draught-board was laid out, and Sabina and Niklaus were arranging their pieces, he told her how he had seen Radegund and Conrad Dasipodius together in the churchyard; and Sabina only said, “Yes, Väterchen? I think it is your move first to-night,” then she played so badly that she put her father quite out of patience.

CHAPTER X.

A FAMOUS CLOCK.

Meantime the new Horologe was making rapid progress. That is, it was making rapid progress considering that it was a Horologe of many parts—no less, indeed, than nine. “Herein,” says Father Chretei’s descriptive preamble, which had been laid before the Town Council, “herein are nine things to be considered.”

“First then, this astronomical clock, which is twenty feet high, stands in the west end of Strassburg Cathedral, and is divided into a great many compartments. A cornice decorated with curious allegorical figures runs across the base. That is divided in the centre by a circle containing a smaller one, in which two angels, one on either side, point out the days of the week, the Anno Domini, the Leap Year, Movable Feasts, Dominical Letter, and many other such details as are to be found in an almanack. A little above this are the planets personified as they name the days; for instance, on Sunday, the sun drawn in his chariot, and so on. Above these is a minute dial, flanked by figures of children, one of which holds a sceptre, and he moves it when the clock strikes; the other child holds an hour-glass, of which the sand runs with the time of the clock, and which he turns when the clock strikes. Above this minute dial is another dial, on whose outer rim are marked the twelve hours of the day, and these are pointed out by the head and tail of a dragon, while in its centre is a curious astrolabe, showing the motion of every planet, the position of the sun to the moon, &c. The fifth thing to be observed is a circle, in which are set forth the two signs of the moon’s rising and falling; a hollow in the surface shows at what quarter she has arrived, and an index points out her age. The sixth thing consists of four little bells, whereon are struck the quarters of the hour; at the first quarter comes forth a little boy, who strikes the first bell with an apple, so he passes on to under the fourth bell, until the second quarter, when a lusty youth comes forth, who strikes two bells with his dart, and then succeeds into the child’s place at the fourth bell, until at the third quarter there comes forth a man-at-arms, halbert in hand, who strikes three bells; he, too, passes on into the place of the youth; then at the fourth quarter, comes forth an old man with a crooked staff, and with much ado, being old, strikes all the four bells, and finally stands still under the fourth quarter.

“Then, and mark, this is the eighth thing to be considered, comes Death into a compartment above, and at each quarter he is supposed to snatch each of these former ages away with him; but close beside him comes our Lord Christ, and drives Death in, only when the last quarter is heard, Christ gives him leave to go to the bell hanging overhead, and then Death strikes the hour with his bone. Then, the old man underneath and Death above him, both go in together. The ninth thing, completing the details of the structure itself, is a tower, containing a merry chime, which rings out at three, seven, and eleven, each time a different tune, and at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, a thanksgiving unto Christ; and when the chime is done, there is a cock standing at the top, who, stretching out his neck, shaking his comb, and clapping his wings twice, crows thrice, and this he does so shrill and naturally as would make any man wonder.

“Besides this, the clock is decorated with many rare pictures. Machinery is also conveyed into the tower of the Cathedral itself, which works a dial on the walls outside, whereon the hours of the sun, the courses of the moon, the length of the day, and such other things are set out with much art. There is beside, a curious celestial globe, supported by a pelican, standing out three feet from the clock itself; it moves from east to west in twenty-four hours; a separate motion describes the sun, which runs through its signs once every year; the third motion describes the moon, which runs her course in twenty-eight days. So that in this globe you may view the motions of the sun and moon every minute of an hour, the rising and falling of every star.”

From the above description, it may well be seen that many hands were engaged in producing this curious specimen of decorated mechanism. The chief part of its wheels and movements were entrusted to the care of Isaac Habrecht, a native of Schaffhausen; while its quaint carvings were wrought by his brother, a youth of about sixteen, named Kaspar. Very proud was Isaac Habrecht of this young brother, and well he might be, for not one in all the broad Black Forest could approach Kaspar’s talent for wood-carving. Gifted with a highly fanciful and graceful imagination, and with a delicate touch and power of manipulation, Kaspar excelled in his art, and it was a joy to the eyes to stand by and see how loyally his hands obeyed the workings of his brain. Other details were carried out by the rest of the students, all of whom were picked men and skilled. The naked wooden case or framework of the Clock had been set up in its place, in the west end of the cathedral, awaiting there the good pleasure of Radegund von Steinbach, to be clothed by her own fair hands in gorgeous allegorical paintings. As yet, however, these paintings were but faint foreglimmerings of their brilliant future; for Radegund was not to be hurried, she chose to do her pictures at her own time, and no other. They would be ready, she said, when all the rest was; and so, as to the when and how of their doing, Strassburg neither cared, nor, indeed, ventured to enquire.

Only Prudentius, lay Brother of Saint Thomas’, and custodian of the cathedral keys, found occasion for deep and enduring displeasure against the artist; and still more against my Lord Bishop himself. Prudentius’ choler was stirred by the fact of Radegund von Steinbach having demanded for herself a key to admit her within the cathedral walls at any hour, day or night, which might suit her; thereby obtaining a power altogether independent of Prudentius’ keys. “Take it how you might,” he argued, “it was wrong, practically and theoretically wrong. What, pray, would Saint Peter himself have to say at such an infringement of his prerogative? Could not my lord see, with half an eye, that the Protestants would at once seize on it, as a tacit admission that there were, after all, little side doors into Heaven, independently of the Apostolic Grand Entrance? and then, of all people in the world, to give this Radegund von Steinbach, this proud, arrogant, overbearing creature, a right to do as she thought proper. This woman who wanted keeping down in her place, with a pretty strong hand, too—no, it was fundamentally, radically bad; an iniquitous precedent my lord would live to repent.” And Prudentius sighed, and felt that in that little key a gem of the first water had been wrenched from his crown of office.

Notwithstanding, the sacristan had brought the indignity on his own head; and it had come about in this wise: One evening just as dusk was fading; into darkness, Radegund von Steinbach had applied for admission to the cathedral, in order to take some measurements for her paintings round the cornice-work of the Horologe; but she came at an inauspicious moment, for Brother Prudentius had already bolted and barred up for the night. It was his invariable custom to have this duty pretty well completed by the time the last lingering worshippers were about to leave the edifice; for he loved not to be left all alone amid those dim, silent aisles. He could never be sure at what spot the terrible shade of old Erwin’s daughter might chance to loom forth. Moreover, on the evening in question, Prudentius had a nice cutlet of vension just done now, as he felt sure, to a turn, awaiting his coming in from the cathedral; he had himself set it down by the fire in his own little cupboard of a lodgment next the sacristy; and as it was a maigre day, he felt it desirable that the fragrance from this morsel should not proclaim itself too far abroad. So, what with one thing and another, Prudentius did not want to be kept kicking his heels in the chilly cathedral, waiting on Radegund’s will and pleasure, and he told her so much.

How he said it never transpired, but Prudentius was a man of many words, while Radegund could ill brook opposition; probably she left him in the midst of his peroration, for he was afterwards heard to say, “She turned and glared—positively glared at me, and then stalked out through the doorway, with never a word but ‘I will settle this matter with my lord himself’. Himself! mark you! and so by Saint Benedict she has too, and my lord has actually taken from me my little cloister door key, and given it to this painting-woman! Oh, it is abominable. The Bishop is as blind as a mole; only think what a kettle of fish he is brewing for himself, to go letting this Radegund have the run of the place day and night. Why can’t she abide by my rules like decent folks? Ah, well, living or dead, they’re a strange lot those von Steinbachs. Mark my words now, one of these fine nights she’ll be picking a quarrel with that ghost cousin of hers, up in the choir yonder—ah, it’s awful to think of!” and the sacristan shivered. “But there, my lord is always letting himself be hoodwinked. Yet what can you expect? He only knows womenkind with their church faces on, and has not a notion what overbearing cats they are. But I know,” nodded the worldly-wise Prudentius, “and I know I’d have eaten my head off before I’d have given in to this Radegund; there’ll be mischief come of it as sure as I’m alive, see if there won’t.”

CHAPTER XI.

THE PASS-KEY.

Meantime Radegund, on leaving the flustered sacristan, made her way straight to the Bishop’s Palace, and demanded an audience of the chaplain. It was growing late, and the good man was beginning to nod over the missive he was transcribing for my lord, to an ecclesiastic of his diocese, who, said Rumour, was tainted with heresy; but the well-known face of Radegund von Steinbach roused him, and inwardly marvelling what could bring her there at such an hour, he rose, and silently waited for her to tell her errand.

“I wish to speak with my lord,” she said, answering his enquiring glance.

“My lord’s audience has been ended these two hours. To-morrow——”

“Will not suit me. I must see him now.”

“But it is impossible. The Bishop has retired for the night.”

“To bed?”

“No—not precisely. To his private chamber, and is now probably at his devotions.”

“Say Radegund von Steinbach desires to speak with him.”

“But this is informal, it is not the custom.”

“In this instance custom must be waived. Go instantly, and tell my lord that I desire to speak with him on business connected with the Horologe.”

The chaplain wavered; the Horologe was a special hobby with my Lord Bishop, and he was in the habit of looking in very often at the studio to watch its progress; and Conrad Dasipodius stood high in his favour. Moreover, the chaplain, stealing a glance at Radegund, saw in her eyes something which determined him on at least going to acquaint the Bishop with her demand. He soon returned, bringing word that the interview was to be accorded; and Radegund, with her sweeping garments gathered about her, followed the chaplain through a long vaulted corridor, terminating in the audience chamber, but that was all dark now, and they turned off to the left, down a narrow and tortuous stone gallery, until they reached a low arched doorway hung with dusky green arras. Here the chaplain paused, and lifting the curtain, signed to Radegund to enter; then bowing low, he left her.

So deep was the silence reigning in the chamber, that Radegund believed herself alone; and her artist eye busied itself with marking some of its details. Tapestry, wrought with scenes from biblical and ecclesiastical lore, decorated its walls; only the eastern end was lost in the depths of an arched alcove, from whose centre hung a bronze lamp, its steady light dimly illumining a small altar beneath, whereon stood a pyx surmounted by a silver-gilt crucifix exquisitely chased, and flanked by tall candlesticks of the same precious metal. The candles in these were unlighted now, and only the lamp’s gleam revealed the figure of a man clad in a long purple silk cassock, kneeling on the little sanctuary steps. This man’s features were quite lost in the obscurity; but the dignified outline of the bending neck and shoulders, revealed to Radegund the presence of John, Bishop of Strassburg.

Save the stealthy splitting of the burnt-out logs on the hearth, the silence remained unbroken, for Radegund stood by the entrance still as some statue, until the Bishop, crossing breast and brow, rose from his knees, and with one lowly bend of his stately form, turned from the little shrine, and taking a small lamp which stood beside him on the floor, approached the fire, and kindled the wick from its flame; then placing his lamp on the table, he looked at Radegund with keen, enquiring eyes.

Now Radegund von Steinbach was a clever woman, and more than once had rendered the Bishop signal services, which he greatly valued. Despite his lofty bearing, John of Manderscheid, Bishop of Strassburg, was a humane and gentle-hearted man, conscientious to an almost painful degree; but very early in his episcopate he had found that to be a truly just ruler, was indeed a superhuman task. In that portion of the Church Militant which it was his lot to govern, there was many a one, innocent enough possibly in the sight of Heaven, who, judged by an earthly tribunal, would have been found by no means impeccable, and some folks were then vastly chary of making an appearance even as witnesses in the justice hall. It was but recently that the terrible Vehmgericht itself had fallen into abeyance; and for a political mistake, or an awkwardly expressed religious opinion, heads were still frequently known to fall; but the Bishop of Strassburg would avail himself of any fairly obtainable sub rosâ information rather than suffer those summary proceedings, which were the order of the day, and which appeared to him only a very slight modification of lynch law. By means of such information, he was able to grasp the bearings of a case which would otherwise have escaped him.

Oftentimes he would ask himself if this were doing evil that good might come? but he took refuge in the argument that the diseases he had to treat yielded to no ordinary remedies; and then the Bishop would, in his heart of hearts, curse the fate which had thrown him upon such evil times—such curious times, when Christians by no means loved one another, and scarce two men were to be found of one mind in a house; when Catholic had no shadow of a doubt that his Lutheran fellow creature was Anathema Maranatha, and Calvinist was much exercised to decide whether Catholic or Lutheran would lie the lower in that howling perdition to which each was inevitably doomed. Those heresies which ever and again from the beginning had cropped up in the Church, were aggravating, troublesome problems enough no doubt, but at least they had had in them some show of reasoning, and compared with the Shibboleths men pronounced now, were easy to solve, and had always left a man leisure enough to prepare himself for Heaven, and to make himself useful in this life besides. Or, on the other hand, had it but pleased God to have cast his lot some century or two later, by then of course men would have settled to their entire satisfaction, all that so greatly disturbed them now; and there would be no more wrangling, no more bitterness, no more spiteful challenging of each other to make clear in poor weak words, those things which all the words under the sun are powerless to express—no more polemical controversy; and then the Bishop sighed, and thought how pleasant it would be to live in those good times, for he shrank from controversy as he would have shrunk from the Upas tree’s shade.

Still he felt that as in Germany, and for the matter of that, in France and Spain, and away there in England too, everybody was talking at once, and no one paid real attention to what the other might be having to say, there was no probability of matters being immediately settled. He had, therefore, long since made up his mind to act as well as he was able for the welfare of his flock, and if he could adjust matters without faggot, and axe, and rack, he always did; and many a time Radegund von Steinbach had helped him to this desirable consummation, by recapitulating to him what she had chanced to hear discussed in her studio, which was a grand centre for the news of the day. The wits, the savans, the clergy, fine ladies and gentlemen, all flocked there; and the latest utterance from the Vatican, the most modish style of farthingale, that queer notion about the earth’s rotatory movement, the newest heretical vagary, the noblest design for a sword-hilt, and a hundred other topics were aired in Radegund’s studio; and the Bishop knew that nothing worth remembering ever escaped her.

“This is an unwarrantable intrusion, child,” he said, looking with some anxiety at Radegund. “By what right do you demand an interview at this late hour?”

“By right of my art,” answered Radegund.

The Bishop’s eyes opened wide.

“Your art, forsooth! and could it not wait till morning?”

“No, my lord,” said Radegund.

“I tell you,” continued the Bishop, an angry scarlet spot kindling on his thin pale cheek, “that for this untimely interruption, I could put those clever fingers between the thumbscrews, and spoil their daubings——”

“And the Horologe,” softly concluded Radegund.

The Bishop paused; the Horologe was his hobby—to see the Horologe in all its complete glory was a desire very near his heart.

“And what has the Horologe to do with it?” he asked.

“This much, my lord,” she answered, “that unless you consent to the requisition I have come here to make, I hold myself justified in withdrawing from my share of this contract”; and Radegund drew forth a roll of parchment which the Bishop recognised as the written agreement between Radegund and the City of Strassburg for the decorative painting of the new Horologe. “With your leave, my Lord Bishop, I will read.”

“But——,” said the Bishop, who was very tired.

“I,” pitilessly began Radegund, “Radegund von Steinbach, do hereby promise and undertake to cover and adorn the cornice, entablatures, panellings, and divers other portions of the new Horologe now about to be builded in the cathedral of this good City of Strassburg with fair and fitting adornments of paintings, the said adornments of paintings to be completed before or by the date of the public dedication of the aforesaid Horologe to the service of God, and for the use and benefit of the citizens of this city. Furthermore——”

“Yes,” said the Bishop, repressing a yawn, “’tis indeed drawn up in right clerkly style, but——”

“Furthermore,” continued the ruthless Radegund, “it is conceded that every aid and furtherance for the better and more perfect carrying out of the aforesaid painting work be accorded to me, Radegund von Steinbach, and that no lets, hindrance, or obstacle of whatsoever kind or sort—mark that, my lord—be placed in my way, else shall this contract be null and void. You mark, my lord?”

“Of a certainty yes, my child,” assented the Bishop.

“Furthermore,” sternly continued Radegund, “I do hereby acknowledge that in consideration of my promised service, I have received a portion of the guerdon to be paid for my labours. Here it is, my lord,” and drawing from beneath her mantle a bag of money, the artist pushed it across the table towards the Bishop. “Take your gold again, but count it—not a florin has been touched.”

“But ——,” said the Bishop.

“And now to destroy this contract,” she said, folding the parchment again and again, until it was but an inch-wide strip; then she brought it near to the lamp’s flame, but still at a safe distance. “This piece of skin shall shrivel like a heretic, for like a heretic it has broken faith.” Then, for the first time, she paused, waiting for a reply, and the Bishop hurried to seize his advantage.

“But the requisition, child,” he said.

“I am coming to that,” answered the politic Radegund, who had but hung her threats like Damocles’ sword over the Bishop’s head; “it is simply that I require a key to pass me into the cathedral—to paint—when I will.”

“But,” contended the Bishop, “Brother Prudentius is in the cathedral from dawn to sunset.”

“Brother Prudentius,” answered Radegund, “is precisely the let, hindrance, and obstacle of which I complain to you, my lord. Brother Prudentius is a coward and a glutton; he is afraid of ghosts, and he is always talking about his supper.”

“Concerning ghosts, my daughter, which treats of the supernatural, many erudite and holy men hold the opinion of our worthy Prudentius. The cathedral, as you are well aware, is said to be haunted. Regarding supper, that treats of the natural and lawful desire of the carnal man,” and here the Bishop cast a glance at his own simple evening repast spread ready on a distant buffet. “I cannot see that Prudentius is specially blameworthy.”

“Not blameworthy?” interrupted the artist, “when he is for ever blighting my truest inspirations! They come to me, my lord, always with the twilight and the stars; then, too, comes this dolt, this idiot with his jingling keys and his hideous grin. ‘Time’s up, mistress,’ he says, ‘we may take holiday now.’ Think of that, my lord,” and Radegund’s brow crimsoned at the recollection.

“But he is right. It is this zeal, this love for your art, which is too great for your body’s health. Look,” continued the Bishop, taking one of Radegund’s thin hands in his, and holding it to the light, “how wasted and fragile are these fingers; and your eyes too are so hollow, child, and your cheeks so wan and pale. When do you take rest?”

“Rest?” muttered Radegund. “No, no rest!”

“But that is wrong, sinful. Is it not our Lord Christ who speaks of the night as that time when none can work?”

“And is it not He,” retorted the artist, “Who said the ‘wind bloweth where it listeth; thou canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth’? And so it is with us artists, my lord; many a dazzling, tedious, garish day passes, and our hands and brains are so lifeless, that the fools and money-grubbers call us nicknames, and chide us for a lazy, worthless, pleasure-loving herd, who only cumber the ground; but when the sun sets, and the world sleeps—when the black cloud-curtains gather about us, and without all is hidden, then it is that the lamp of our souls grows brighter than Heaven’s stars, and memory and phantasy come forth—oh, the night is beautiful!”

“But,” argued the practical Bishop, “one cannot go painting in the dark.”

“Are we toiling only when the brush is in our hands? You mock me, my lord. Cannot your soul, which so loves the work we do, tell you that we must be free, free to come and go into the presence of our creations as we will? We cannot brook to be girded hither and thither at the bidding of pitiful earth-clods like yon Prudentius.”

“That is all very well,” said the Bishop; “but your fellow-worker now, the mathematician, whom many a time I have heard you say is not to be matched for devotion to his great art-knowledge—he does not complain of our cathedral rules. Your friend I mean, Conrad Dasipodius, he is content to work by day.”

“The night and day are alike to Conrad Dasipodius,” and Radegund’s voice trembled somewhat; “I mean,” she added hastily, “that it is his nature to be as accurately balanced as a piece of his own clockwork.”

“And yet he too is an enthusiast, an artist.”

“Truly,” said Radegund; “but who can ever be like Conrad Dasipodius.”

“Indeed, he is no ordinary man,” answered the Bishop. “A noble nature;—but you are ill, Radegund!” for Radegund had grown very pale. “Poor child, poor child! what is it that ails thee? What can bring back those old bright looks? Tell me!” and as the old man laid his hand kindly on Radegund’s shoulder, a warm tear fell on it all unbidden; but Radegund would have nothing to do with the luxury of tears, and brushing the intruder away, she said with a harsh, unreal smile, which troubled the wise Bishop far more than tears could trouble him, “The key, the key, my father; that will make me as happy as a queen.”

“But,” said the Bishop, resorting to his last forlorn remonstrance, “what if you should set the cathedral on fire with your lamp?”

“Tush!” said Radegund, with no small impatience, “give me the key.”

“What if folks ask——”

“Tell them that Radegund von Steinbach works at their Horologe. Now, give me the key.”

“But they will never understand——”

“And what then? Surely a Bishop is lord of his own cathedral. What a piece of work is this, about a poor little morsel of iron!”

“But it is just this little morsel of iron which gives access to the entire cathedral. If anything should go wrong, the blame would fall on you. Have you considered this?”

“I have considered all, my lord. Give me the key, and let me go.”

With a sigh the Bishop turned towards a massive oaken press; unlocking it, and opening a secret drawer, he produced from it the coveted open sesame. Then he crossed the chamber, and lifting some drapery which hung before one of the casements, he pointed across the moonlit courtyard to a low iron-clamped door, sunken deeply into the cathedral wall; placing the key in her hand, he said, “Take it, it is my own private key; Prudentius has its duplicate—it only admits through yonder door.”

Radegund’s fingers closed greedily on the coveted prize, and then she hurriedly turned to depart. “Since when have you learned to despise the benediction of Holy Church?” asked the Bishop, in a tone of reproach.

“Forgive me, my lord, I forgot,” said Radegund, and then she came back and knelt at his feet. “May Christ and His Blessed Mother watch over thee, and guard thy ways,” said the Bishop solemnly. Radegund murmured a very low amen, then she was gone.

“These artist-folks—what wayward creatures they are!” thought the Bishop to himself, as he lay down that night on his bed; “and, Holy Mary, how irritable! Still, Prudentius does know how to make himself terribly tiresome, I am quite aware of that. What a glorious work this Horologe will be, perfect within and without. Conrad Dasipodius and Radegund von Steinbach working hand-in-hand. A masterpiece indeed.” Then the Bishop fell asleep, and dreamed of the Horologe.

CHAPTER XII.

“SPIRITS OF HEALTH, OR GOBLINS DAMN’D?”

Next morning, as usual, Brother Prudentius came to unlock the cathedral doors. Utterly beyond the power of words would it be to describe the Sacristan’s horror at finding his domain already occupied by—the ghost! Sabina—not the living, rosy, comfortable little daughter of Niklaus the goldsmith, but her terrible ancestress, the two centuries-dead Sabina von Steinbach. There she—It—stood half way up the nave, shading Its ghastly face with Its shadowy hand in a haze of bluish green, and the blood gouts all staining Its flowing white robes. Ah! grisly, fearsome sight! And Prudentius would have turned and fled, had not a sepulchral voice called him by his name,—“Prudentius!”

And Prudentius stood all rooted with terror to the spot; then staggering forward, sank on his knees, not three yards from the apparition.

“Prudentius! get up; don’t be a fool.”

With quite military promptitude the Sacristan obeyed. If that awful voice had said: “Prudentius, stand on thy head,” assuredly, had the encumbrance of the flesh permitted, he would have striven his best to obey. “Heaven help thee,” continued the voice; “was ever such a craven? Do you take me for a ghost, that your jaws clatter in that fashion? Speak, fellow.”

“Pardon—forgive—gracious——” stammered Prudentius, thus adjured; then he broke down.

“Forgive, yes; you did but your duty, poor wretch; but I warn you not to attempt ever again to dispute the right of way with Radegund von Steinbach; do you hear?” and the Artist, for she it was, came near and sternly measured the breadth and length of the unhappy little Sacristan. She had stepped into the shadow now, and the mists of his extremest terror clearing from his eyes, he began to perceive that the ghastly haze which had enveloped her was but the azure and golden reflection of those glorious choir windows, in the sunrays, pouring down on the cathedral floor, and that Radegund von Steinbach and no ghost stood before him; but the blood-flecks, ah! were they not still there? Well, the Artist had already been two hours at her task, and some small patches of vermilion had fallen from her paint-brush on to her bodice, just as in these days an ink spot or two will now and again stain the garments or the fingers of careless literary ladies, and at least that bright red had an advantage in being picturesque.

“And now,” continued Radegund, “leave off mopping and mowing, and get about your business, as I am doing.” Then she turned and began silently to survey her morning’s work. It did not strike her that there was any need for wasting words in explaining to the little Sacristan how she had succeeded in obtaining the start of him in his own peculiar hunting-grounds, and Prudentius was himself but too glad to escape from her on such easy terms to “affairs demanding,” as he hurriedly explained to her, “immediate attention” right away there in the Ladye Chapel at the other end of the cathedral. Certainly his mind was relieved when he found that the ghost was, after all, but the mortal Radegund von Steinbach; yet only comparatively, for Prudentius stood in the deepest awe of this dark-eyed handsome woman. That she had dealings with the supernatural, he never doubted, therefore on these and many other grounds she was much to be avoided. As to her beauty, she was not all his style. Beauty indeed; why, was she a morsel like the widow Hedwig, who always had a chatty word with him, when he went to cater for his community at her kraut stall. There was beauty if you like, all plumpness, and wholesomeness, and colour. No angle about her.

Not a scrap neither, like that sweet little maiden, Niklaus the Burgomaster’s daughter, who came so regularly every day to tell her beads up yonder in Saint Laurence’s Chapel, and whom, if he could tell a cat from a king, Master Dasipodius was so sweet upon. No, Prudentius was certain that Radegund von Steinbach was uncanny, and he was neither by any means the only one who thought so. Mother Etzel was saying just the same only last week, when this Radegund had caught her in the act of pulling a hair or so out by the roots, from her imp of a child’s head, for sitting in the middle of the gutter; and there out in the street, regardless of all appearance, if my haughty madam did not rate her in such sound fashion, that she was actually driven to promise she would not do it again, just as if one was not to do as one pleased with one’s own child! And then, too, when the blind beggar’s clumsy brute of a dog got his leg broken under the trooper’s horse, if this Radegund, who hasn’t ever a word to throw at a Christian, didn’t actually kneel down in the mud, and bind it up with her own hands; and didn’t the beast keep licking them all the while instead of biting, as it would have done, if only her flesh had been true Christian flesh. And the leg healed in no time too, like magic. Like?—it was magic! and now there was this dog and his idiot of a master ready to worship the ground she trod. Some folks said Radegund was a genius.—Well, we all know what that means, genius or witch,—witch or genius, and Mistress von Steinbach would come to a bad end. Why, you had only to look at her, to see the devil peeping out at the corners of her eyes—Heaven save us all! and then Prudentius always shivered and crossed himself, at least half a dozen times.

But now Radegund had aggravated her offences; she had bewitched the Bishop. Never before perhaps had such an instance of the frailty of poor human nature been known. Here was my lord, goodness and righteousness itself, a man apparently incorruptible, and yet to be hoodwinked by a woman just because she happened to be able to smarten up a piece of dirty canvas with paint! It was a sin and a shame, if ever there was, to see how he had given in to all her whimsies, and now this getting the run of the cathedral was just of a piece with all the rest. She had been, as usual, twisting my lord round her little finger, and lost no time about it neither; and now, if it pleased her, and of course it would please her, she would be turning night into day. Yes, there would be Walpurgis night in the place before long, and all respectable God-fearing folks would be terrified out of their wits. In such soliloquy the Sacristan relieved his mind, when he had put the cathedral’s length between himself and the Artist. Then he proceeded to replenish the stoups with holy water, “for,” said he, “there’ll be oceans full of it wanted, if this Radegund is to have the run of the place”.

Time however proved that Radegund was quite content with her own corner of the cathedral, where stood the outworks of the Horologe. There, by virtue of her little pass-key, she came and went at her own will, and never so much as knew whether there was such a personage as the fat little Sacristan about the precincts at all, and although this put him sorely out, it was only, he said, of a piece with all the rest of her; “despising dignities”; and then, too, all things considered, perhaps he liked it best as it was, and so there ensued an interregnum of perfect outward serenity, and the great work of the Horologe went prosperously on.

Conrad Dasipodius also came and went to his work; and to the learned in horology, the clock’s interior was even more beautiful than its exterior. Once or twice Sabina and her father had been to the mathematician’s studio to see the wonderful work, and very pretty and amusing she thought were all those wheels and chains and shining brasses which were being gradually knit together into a marvellous whole; but she liked infinitely better the quaint automata which were to perform their parts outside. Those were clever things indeed, and when the artificers, gratified by the pretty little lady’s notice, set the awkward arms and legs of the puppets into all sorts of wonderful attitudes for her pleasure, she would clap her hands and cry aloud with delight: “Oh! but how lovely! and it was you, of course, who cut out this darling little man’s great nose, and stuck all his five fingers in so nice and straight?” she said one day to Dasipodius, her eyes brimming over with pride and admiration.

“Nay, I cannot accredit myself with such sort of skill,” answered the mathematician; “that is the work of Kaspar Habrecht here,” and he laid his hand on the boy’s head. But Sabina’s countenance fell: “You seem to care for those needles and bits of chain, and things, much more than you do for all these handsome little wooden ladies and gentlemen,” she said.

“They are dearer to me, certainly,” admitted Dasipodius, with a grave soft smile; “for these needles, and chains, and wheels are the life and soul of the Horologe, Mistress Sabina.”

“And what of Radegund’s—my niece’s share in the work?” asked Niklaus. “She gives us little of her confidence; but you—you have seen—what do you think of it?”

“My Lord Bishop considers it very admirable so far; and there is not you know, Burgomaster, a better judge of painting in all the city than he is.”

“And you,” insisted Niklaus, “what is your own opinion?”

“I am no competent critic,” answered Conrad.

“But,” said Sabina, with a little moue, “you can say whether or not you think it pretty, I suppose?”

“I have scarcely seen it, Mistress,” evaded Conrad; and Sabina was enchanted with his reply. To her jealous little ears it seemed so plainly to say: “I do not trouble my head about Radegund and her doings”.

Yet doubtless in the innocence of that heart of his, which was all Sabina’s, he would have accorded Radegund’s productions their well-deserved meed of praise had he been able to see them. But he could not see them; the magnificent pictures danced before his eyes like great blots of scarlet and purple, and dazzling yellow, without shape or outline, just as now the bright farthingale and silver-laced bodice of his mistress, as she tripped about from bench to bench, made him giddy; and it was only when her shapely head and neat rounded figure flitted between himself and the casement, that with an agonising, although outwardly imperceptible straining of the eye-nerves, he could distinguish her beloved form from the clumsiest wooden block awaiting the carver’s chisel in his studio.

Ever since that bitter grief-day, when he lay in the snow on Chretei Herlin’s grave, Dasipodius had become nearly stone-blind. There were moments when his vision cleared a little, but that only made the returning darkness still darker; and yet, with all their Will-o’-the-wisp cruelty, and false whisperings of hope, the mathematician was very grateful for these light-flashes, because he was able to clutch at them as they came, and so to use them, that they should teach him what to be doing in that future when they should come no more; for Bruno Wolkenberg, the surgeon, had told him that the hour must come when they would cease altogether. That time seemed very close at hand now; for while at first he had had many consecutive minutes of comparatively clear vision, as the days passed, their angel visits grew fewer and farther between; but once or twice in a week, and then one week—two weeks would pass and they came not at all. Still, come or go, as far as the Clock was concerned, it mattered little enough to Dasipodius; his nature’s incorruptible honesty would at all hazards have prompted him to give up the public work he had undertaken, had he believed that it would have suffered by one hair’s-breadth from any incapacity consequent on his deprivation; but Dasipodius was no more incapable of fulfilling his trust now, than he had been in the days of his perfect eyesight, and never perhaps was the great principle of compensation more thoroughly demonstrated, than in the blind mathematician’s case. Nature had but carefully gathered up all the essence of the one lost sense of sight, to mingle it with the sense of touch, and to the world no grain of his wondrous power had been lost by his personal calamity; for with all its alleviations, a calamity it undoubtedly was. What can blindness be else, even to the dullest, most insensitive human atomy on the face of the earth? but on such a nature as the mathematician’s, to which the blue sky, the waving grass, the glance of his old dog Rappel’s wistful eye, the ripple on the river, the wings of the dragon-fly glistening in the sun-light, the purple and golden sheen of a painted window, and all those million sights which wean the mind from for ever looking inward on miserable or merry self, spoke so eloquently, the deprivation fell heavily indeed.

Yet who should talk of Heaven being unkind, or life a blank, now Sabina loved him? Had such a compromise been possible, he would not have bartered this love of his for a thousand eyes; why then should he murmur, he whose lot was so immeasurably more blessed than that of others? Barely even the shadow of a thought that Sabina might love him the less for his affliction ever came to distress him. On the contrary: “Had this affliction befallen her, as it has me,” he would argue to himself, “would that have lessened my love for her? Dear little one! no, surely;—love is love, and she loves me, that is enough.” And had it been merely a question between himself and his mistress, he would, in all thorough trustfulness, have confided to her his sad secret; but on this same secret hung every question of his future, and of hers. Sabina was in all things a very woman,—that was perhaps why he so devotedly loved her—having all the idiosyncracies of a woman; and had he told her of his blindness, how could he be sure she would not fall a weeping and lamenting for her lover’s hard destiny, and so let the world know what he so earnestly desired to keep hidden? Or, refraining from that, as possibly she might, for Sabina was a brave little heart, she would nurse her grief, and let concealment “feed on her damask cheek,” until Niklaus, and he himself—though his own eyes might not see her faded looks—would be driven distracted about her.

As to objections which the Burgomaster might raise against his child’s uniting her fortunes with a blind man, he pondered much over that; and a conflict had arisen in his heart, as to whether honour and his boundless love for her did not urge him to give her up; but that curious mingling of common sense and of sentiment which were characteristic of the mathematician’s nature, argued that, as a man, Sabina’s father approved him. Moreover, Niklaus liked money, and providing a man was an honest fellow besides, Dasipodius believed that with a little demurring, the goldsmith, if all else went well, would come to forgive the blindness, and at least that part of the question must take care of itself. “I cannot put folks into my skin, and nothing short of that would ever make him, or others, believe that my eyes are not essential to their Horologe; and, at all hazards, the secret must remain a secret.” And so Dasipodius went about his work with calm self-possession, and it so grew and glorified beneath his fingers, that his co-workers would look on in loving wonder and admiration, and say that their teacher was inaugurating a new era in mechanical science, and that his fingers seemed almost enchanted.

“Ay,” muttered the only one among them whose wonderings were mingled with envy and malice, “he is possessed,—he needs scarce look at what he is doing. His eyes are as often cloud-wandering as on what he holds in his hands. Do you mark that strange look in his eyes?” demanded Otto von Steinbach of his comrades.

“It is inspiration,” said they.

“It is the devil!” said Otto.

CHAPTER XIII.

OLD-WORLD TALES.

Supper is just over in the Burgomaster’s house. The table is not yet cleared, and the ruddy wine lying low in the silver flagon gleams in the soft firelight, while the jaws of the great larded boar’s head seem absolutely agrin with delight at the marks of havoc which have been made into his cervicular region. Master Niklaus von Steinbach is just going for a little quarter-of-an-hour or so longer back to his counting-house, to look through some memoranda concerning a consignment of precious stones for which he is in treaty for the new cathedral Horologe. Conrad Dasipodius has himself called in about this matter on Niklaus, and the Burgomaster, although, as he told himself, matters were a little awkward just then, could but invite his visitor to share their evening meal, and Conrad accepted Niklaus’ invitation with a well-contented smile. “That was all reasonable enough,” Niklaus thought, “as far as it went”; but when, after supper, he found that negotiations could only be brought to a successful issue by consulting some documents locked up in his strong-room, he began to feel much put about at the notion of leaving the two young people together. “It is dangerous,” he grumbled to himself, “most dangerous!” and then he made something of an attempt to induce Dasipodius to go to the strong-room too, and look over the documents with him. The mathematician said, however, there would be no use whatever in his going, and he would, with Master Niklaus’ good leave, much prefer staying where he was. And so, without referring to details which perhaps were best left alone, Niklaus could not see how he could gainsay him. “I can’t afford to quarrel with Dasipodius,” he said to himself, as he crossed the flagstones of his courtyard; “and it’s just as likely that these two have forgotten all their fancies by now, and even supposing——A murrain seize this lock! has the Ice King got into it?” and in a vigorous tussle with the stubborn bolts of his counting-house door, the Burgomaster forgot all about that dangerous tête-à-tête in the dining-hall.

Meantime, Sabina had seated herself by the fireside and begun to spin; the light of the lamp hanging from the middle boss of the carven ceiling was put to shame by the dazzling blaze of the flames roaring up the spacious chimney, and throwing the stately shadow of the mathematician on to the oak-panelled wall behind him, as he stood facing the young mistress of the house. Stealing a shy glance up at him, Sabina thought that never had his beautiful eyes looked more beautiful than now.

“Do you remember the puppet that so pleased you the last time you were at our studio?” he asked presently.

“Which do you mean. Old Father Time and his scythe?”

“No, the beautiful youth, Cupid.”

“Ah, yes,” and Sabina blushed, though she hardly knew why.

“It is finished. Kaspar placed the bow and shaft in his hands this very noon.”

“That is capital,” said Sabina, with sparkling eyes.

“It is the last of the figures. They are finished now.”

“Why, then, the Horologe is done!” delightedly exclaimed she.

“Nay, not quite that,” answered Dasipodius with a sigh; “much of the machinery lacks completion as yet; and some of what is done is not as good as I would have it.”

“Ah, but you are too particular—you are indeed,” she said, looking up at him; “the Bishop was talking with my father only this morning, and he told him that he thought the Horologe simply perfect, and my lord must know, for he can talk Hebrew and Greek, and——”

Dasipodius smiling and shaking his head, fixed his eyes wistfully on the fire. “There was once a mouse——” he said.

“Once a mouse,” echoed Sabina, swiftly but very noiselessly turning her wheel-handle, for she dearly loved a story. “Go on.”

“And this mouse had lived all his life in an old oak chest in the sacristy of a church.”

“Ah, I know!” interrupted Sabina, “like the St. Thomas’ Church, or even perhaps like our glorious cathedral itself?”

“No, I think not; it was only a poor little country church, and the sacristy was of course a very small place indeed.”

“Well,” said Sabina, in rather disappointed tones.

“But then the mouse thought his wooden chest a splendid apartment. ‘How large it is!’ he always said to himself, as he ran round and round in it.”

“Dear little thing.”

“Well, one day it happened that the curate, who was looking for some old parchments, opened the lid of the chest, and out popped the mouse.”

“Oh!” said Sabina anxiously, “did the good father see him?”

“Not a bit of it, he was far too busy to worry his head about a scrap of a mouse; and so the little thing got safely away and hid himself in a hole in the sacristy wall, until everything was still again, then he summoned courage to put his head out: ‘Ah,’ he said to himself, ‘but this is a fine large place if you like’.”

“And did he live happy there for ever after?” asked Sabina.

“Dear child, no; for after he had run round and round it for a day or two, he chanced to catch sight of a line of daylight shining under the door, and he contrived to squeeze himself through into the church.”

“Ah!” said Sabina softly, “with the blessed Christ Child and His dear Mother, and all the holy angels!—the beautiful church itself! And he was happy then, Conrad, quite, quite content?”

“Alas, no!” and then the mathematician paused. “It is true our mouse said just what you say, my Sabina: ‘Ah, one can be—must be happy in this great beautiful place!’ and for a long time he stayed there, and grew into a steady and most respectable mouse. And he grew fat, as church mice now and again do, dear child. I am afraid he ate too much of the bread that used to be in the church for giving to the poor. At all events he stayed there for a long time, feeling himself very comfortable. Somehow at last, however, he began to grow restless, and when he used to hear the sweet choir music, it seemed to him that after it had filled every corner of that vast place, some of it still floated away—away, out beyond those beautiful walls and fair windows, and he wanted to discover where the music went, and one day he followed it, and found himself outside the sheltering walls of that brave old church.”

“Oh, the silly, silly mouse!” regretfully cried Sabina.

“Outside, amid broad green fields, with the free air playing round him, and telling him a thousand things he had never heard before—and the blue sky overhead; but when he looked well up all round, he saw several black clouds——”

“And just served him right!” said Sabina, with a majestic nod; “how he must have wished himself safe back inside the dear old church.”

“No, I don’t believe the clouds frightened him; he had such a great deal to think about besides; and when he had looked all round with his bright eyes as wide open as ever they could be, he was amazed to think what a very little he could see after all. ‘Oh, now I know,’ he said, ‘that it is limitless. I cannot run all round and round here. I positively believe it has no walls!’”

“Well, and so what became of him?” asked Sabina, for the mathematician seemed to have come to his story’s end.

“That is more than I know,” said Conrad.

“What a stupid story,” said Sabina; “I hate stories that don’t finish off nicely. Tell me, Master Dasipodius, do you think those terrible thunder clouds killed him?”

“I think not, dear little one, the good God of all is so great and merciful——”

“Yes,” said Sabina, “that’s true, and it might be made a nice story if—if——”

“If what? thou dearest of all little mice,” asked Conrad, quitting his post, and preparing to seat himself beside Sabina, when an appalling sound, beginning with a savage growl and ending in an agonized screech, made him start back in alarm: “Himmelsdonnerwetter!” he exclaimed.

“Ah, get away! you’ve trodden on the cat,” cried Sabina, stooping down, and tenderly taking the aggrieved Mitte up in her arms, she began to cuddle the creature back to its normal quiescence. Meantime the unhappy Conrad stood afar off; an indignity offered to Sabina’s cat was, in her eyes, all the deadly sins rolled into one.

“Poor Mitte,” he ventured to say at last, groping for the creature under the table on hands and knees, “but I am so sorry; I would not have hurt you for the world. Here, Mitte, Mitte!”

“She is here. Don’t you see, safe in my lap. But it really was very awkward of you, you know, Conrad, when the poor thing was right under your eyes—staring you in the face.”

“Was she?” said Dasipodius absently.

“Of course she was,” indignantly said Sabina. “What has come to you? I do believe you are as blind as a mole.”

Conrad’s cheeks flushed, and he laughed uneasily as he said, “Mitte’s eyes are certainly very charming——”

“Yes, are not they?” and Sabina’s frown grew less terrible.

“But somehow I don’t care for them, when Mitte’s mistress’s eyes are shining on me.”

“That is nonsense,” said Sabina, laughing a low, happy little laugh; then Conrad took undisputed possession of a seat beside her.

“Yes, rub her head so, that will make her good-tempered again,” and Conrad continued the rubbing process, till at any rate Mitte’s mistress grew good-tempered again, and Mitte purred enough for all three, singing on her comfortable music, even after Conrad’s hand had strayed from her tabby crown, and possessed itself instead of Sabina’s little hand; and Sabina let her hand be, but, like happy people sometimes are, the two were very silent; the old clock was able to say, “Wait-tic! wait-tac!” over and over again before either spoke. At last Conrad said, “Dear child, you love me still?”

“Yes, Conrad.”

“And you are trusting me? You do not repent of your promise?”

“I will not answer you, Master Dasipodius.”

“Conrad—say Conrad, Sabina.”

“I will not, until you have promised to ask no more foolish questions. Is it not enough that I have already told you I love you, and how should I be weary?”

“But it is I who weary for thee, my darling. It is only half-living, Sabina, when you are not by.”

“We must wait, Conrad; things will come right.” And while the old clock endorsed this announcement, Sabina’s little hand stole up and stroked the student’s thin cheek.

“But I cannot bear to see you so pale and anxious,” she said.

“It is nothing, little one,” he answered, “but what must be.”

“Nay, it need not be; it comes of sitting up so late, and toiling so closely over your work, and your eyes look so—so——”

“So what?” demanded Conrad; “tell me!”

“Nay,” she answered, “I cannot tell. I think it is so bright that I mean, and yet so strangely tired.”

“Yes, I suppose they were—I mean they do grow tired. A little dim even now and then; but press these dear lips on them, my little love, and it will make them well,—quite well again,” and the mathematician stooped his stately head, and Sabina kissed those poor sightless eyes, and then she laughed merrily, and said he took such odd fancies into his head; and altogether that was quite a half-hour of Paradise, while Niklaus the goldsmith still tarried in his strong room, and there was only Mitte, the mother of a hundred kittens, to play propriety—and she dropped asleep, as chaperons sometimes do.

“When you are my wife,” said Conrad presently, “I mean to—hush! What is that?”

“Nothing,” said Sabina.

“I mean to——. I tell you, child, I hear a footstep in the courtyard.”

“Nonsense,” said Sabina.

“Is it your father coming back?”

“No, it cannot be; there is no stick.”

Niklaus sometimes had a gout-fiend in his left leg, and wherever that leg went, the stick, like a familiar spirit, had to go too; and all Strassburg knew the sound of the Burgomaster’s stick.

“How fanciful you are!” said Sabina, pushing aside her wheel, and going to the lattice, she opened a movable pane, and listened.

“Look out,” she said, turning to her lover, who had followed her, “and satisfy yourself;—there is not a creature there.”

The mathematician put his head out, and listened intently; what his eyes might not see, he thought his ears might hear, for they had become preternaturally keen; but there was utter silence in the spacious quadrangle, now illumined by the bright clear moonlight, and save the broad flight of steps, with its heavy stone balustrade, leading up to the dwelling part of the house, there was no object to cast any shadow. When earlier in the evening, Dasipodius had come in through the little door built into the massive wooden entrance gates, he had carefully bolted it behind him, for he knew that the goldsmith was very particular about having his household all safe under lock and key by sunset. “There never was such a place as Strassburg,” he always said, “for rogues. And he had pretty maids and precious jewels to answer for.” And so, if people wanted to be let in after dark, they had to announce themselves by the great house-bell; therefore it must have been, as Sabina said, the mathematician’s fancy, and Dasipodius began to think she was right, and secretly hoped that his blindness was not making him nervous. Then the lovers turned from the window, and came back to the cheery fire. “How bitter cold it is to-night,” said Sabina, kneeling down in front of the blaze, and spreading her hands over it.

“You have chilled yourself at that open window, dear child,” said Dasipodius, chafing the cold little fingers in his own hands, and kissing back the warmth into them.

“Nay,” she answered, “but all the evening it has seemed so chilly, as if some lattice must be open. There! There it comes again! Some one is walking over my grave,” she said, shuddering, just as old wives will say.

“Now it is you who are fanciful,” smiled Dasipodius; but Sabina’s face did not reflect his smile, her eyes were fixed on the blaze, and some bright tears welled slowly up into them, and brimmed over. She was trying to gaze into futurity, and the brain-pictures she made saddened her. Such a strange mood as this the Burgomaster’s sunny-tempered little daughter rarely fell into; how doubly strange, then, that she should fall into it now! When her arms actually rested on her lover’s knee, and he was whispering to her words that sounded sweet and blessed as the whisperings of her guardian angel,—indeed they were one and the same, for Sabina’s guardian angel just as often wore a black doublet as white flowing robes and spotless wings, and its face was spiritualised with thoughtful intellectual beauty, glorified by the halo of her love. How then should there now come this shadow of some unknown dread to mar the feast of happiness overflowing in her heart? It seemed so hard to be reminded just now that her Paradise was not an eternal one, and that her guardian angel was, after all, but a mortal man; and yet of those saddening thoughts were born words which were blessed to her lover’s ears, and which, even when that time came when he did his best to silence their echoings, still lived on in his memory. Very simple they were. “Conrad,” she said, “whatever is to happen, you will know that I love you.”

“My own little darling one.”

“Nay,” she said, “but you are to say—Yes, Sabina!”

“Yes, Sabina.”

“That is right,” she said with a relieved air, “and now we will talk of other things.” But the other things just resolved themselves into the old, old story, and Conrad began to tell her of his plans for the future, and was just about to begin again that interrupted sentence of his, “When you are my wife”—and all her fancies quite forgotten, Sabina was blushing rosily, when there came across the courtyard an unmistakable sound of footsteps, and Sabina said, “There is the stick,” and Niklaus clattered up the steps, and paused for a moment, ere he entered, to contemplate the scene before him. There sat Sabina, like the loveliest little housewife in the world, spinning ever so diligently at her wheel, and the tall figure of the mathematician leaning against the lintel of the fireplace, with that face of his, which none could choose but look at twice, turned towards the fair girl.

“They are a goodly couple,” nodded the Burgomaster to himself, “and make quite a picture there. They don’t seem to have budged an inch since I left them more than half-an-hour ago, but I wouldn’t be on my oath about that.” Then Niklaus’ brow knitted itself into a terrific frown, but the blue eyes beneath twinkled merrily enough; and had he not owned a soft corner in his heart for Conrad Dasipodius, he would hardly have taken it into his head to have left him so long in the old dining-hall alone with his Pearl of pearls.

“Here are the documents, Master Dasipodius,” he said, coming forward into the light, and placing some parchments in the mathematician’s hand. “They only need your signature; but you had best read them through first.”

“Will you read them?” said Dasipodius, handing them back to Niklaus.

“By our Lady—no!” said the Burgomaster. “That is a strange request for young eyes to make of old ones.”

“Young eyes are not always what they should be, Master Niklaus. Mine see but badly by lamplight,” acknowledged Conrad.

“Hey?” said the Burgomaster. “What’s that? Overstrained them, eh? It is shameful, scandalous, how you young folks gamble away God’s gifts now-a-days. It’s the fiddle-ma-gee clock has done that piece of mischief for you, I suppose, hey?”

“Possibly,” said Conrad.

“Possibly! I say of course it is. I tell you what, Master Dasipodius, you young folks live too fast now-a-days. Make money, make money! that’s the beginning and end of your motto. In my time we made love, and let the money go hang.”

“And jeopardised the love?” asked Conrad.

“That’s as it might be,” grunted Niklaus; “but you must take care of those eyes of yours, or there’ll be neither love nor money.” Then he took up the parchments again, and read them through aloud to the mathematician, who put his signature to them in such a clear firm hand, that the Burgomaster said, “There can’t be much amiss with your eyes after all, Master Conrad,” and then Dasipodius turned to take his leave.

“Nay,” said Niklaus, “if you don’t object to an old man’s company, I’ll walk part of the way home with you. I’ve been so busy all day, I haven’t had time to stretch my legs; and it’s a glorious night.” Then turning to his daughter, the Burgomaster said he should be back in half-an-hour or so, and bade her go to bed, or have one of the women-servants to sit with her if she was afraid of the ghosts; but Sabina laughing merrily said, “Spinning-wheels always laid the ghosts,” and when they were gone, she meant to be busy a little while longer.

“Well, it’s plain anyhow she wants to be rid of us,” laughed Niklaus, “so come, Master Dasipodius.”

Then the Burgomaster and the mathematician sallied forth.

CHAPTER XIV.

“DAS HERZ IST GESTORBEN, DIE WELT IST LEER.”

Sabina watched her father and her lover cross the courtyard, and pass out through the little wicket door, which the Burgomaster carefully locked behind him, then she listened until the sound of their voices and the clit-clat of the stick had quite died away in the distance, and so at last she came and resumed her spinning by the hearth; and while the wheel turned steadily, she thought her happy thoughts. What an evening had that been! how unexpectedly joyful! what a red-letter day! and how strange it was, she thought, that the good God always made one’s joys and sorrows come when one was the least thinking about them! Here had she been spinning, dressing, eating, sleeping, day after day for ever so long past, each day being exactly like another (always, of course, excepting the blessed Sunday, when she went with her father, in best silken kirtle and furred hood, to cathedral mass and caught there a glimpse of a certain dear face); and this day had begun in just the same leaden humdrum old way as all the others had, yet suddenly into what a flood of hope and content had it burst! Of hope, because it seemed to her that her father’s objections and scruples were melting away, and at last he was to be won over; of content, because she felt herself so entirely assured of Conrad’s love. Her assurance on that score seemed now so doubly sure. Of late, some troublesome little fancies, doubts she would not call them, concerning what her father had seen in the churchyard, had worried her just the least bit in the world; and indeed, being a most frank and truthful little woman, she had had it in her mind to ask Conrad about that same meeting of his with Radegund; but all such intentions had long fled to the four winds. How was it possible to look at Conrad’s face and not trust him? and was he, who had so much to think about and to worry him, to be vexed with her little foolish jealousies—jealous, forsooth! jealous of Cousin Radegund, indeed? Would that be womanly—wifely; that is, would it be worthy of the woman whom Conrad Dasipodius had chosen for his wife? And then, up rose the future again, clad now in no sombre colours, but all soft and rosy and lovely; and then, too, up rose that past, which not a quarter of an hour ago had been the present; and it seemed to the girl that the voice so grave and manly, and yet withal so tender and gentle, lingered yet on the still warm air of the old dining-hall, and of such stuff as this were Sabina’s ghosts.

“Sabina!” said a voice, but not now the fancied echoes of her lover’s accents: this voice, although it was a woman’s, had in it a harsh ring, and the Burgomaster’s daughter, starting from her happy reverie, looked hastily towards the lattice whence the sound came. “Who are you? what do you want?” she said, with beating heart.

“It is I, Radegund, your cousin. Do you not know me? Let me in, Sabina, I am dying of cold out here.”

“Poor child, of course you are,” said Sabina, pushing aside her wheel, and going to the door to admit her visitor. “But how long have you been there? the gates have been locked these two hours.”

“Yes,” shivered Radegund, “ever since Conrad Dasipodius came in, and I came in with him. I could do that I suppose, couldn’t I?”

“I shouldn’t have thought so,” replied Sabina; “that is, I mean, unperceived.”

The artist made no reply, she only smiled curiously, as she crouched down over the flame, and spread out her thin hands in the welcome warmth; and as the red light flickered on her tall figure, Sabina could not help thinking again of that terrible picture of Atè in the Town Hall. At last Radegund spoke. “I’ve been outside there ever so long. And there has been another snowfall. It chilled me through and through; and all the time you were billing and cooing here by the warm fire.”

“Oh, Radegund!” was all Sabina found to say.

“I’m dead cold,” shuddered the Artist, more closely gathering her long cloak about her, between whose folds the melting snow trickled down like tears.

“Let me dry it,” said Sabina, trying to take it from her shoulders.

“Leave it!” said Radegund, snatching it roughly from her hand. “I cannot stay. Supposing your father should return!”

“He would be very angry with you for standing out there, to get your death of cold, Radegund. I can’t imagine what possessed you to do such a thing.”

“Don’t stare at me like that, child. Holy Virgin! what a goose you always are!” said Radegund crossly, as her magnificent eyes quailed uneasily beneath the enquiring gaze of the Burgomaster’s daughter. “Do you know you are looking positively ugly now?”

“Am I?” said Sabina, as she thought to herself what very different stuff lovers and lady-cousins must be made of! but qu’est-ce qu’allait-elle faire dans cette galère? what freak of her eccentric cousin’s had led her to lurk outside in the cold dreary courtyard at such a time of night? “But I will leave her to herself a bit,” decided Sabina. “She is a little cross now, poor thing, and that is no wonder, considering how cold she must be.”

“So you are thinking I was mad—possessed, to stand out there,” said Radegund, after a silence of some duration; “possessed with what, think you?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Sabina; “I cannot make it out.”

“No,” answered Radegund in lofty tones; “poor child; but I will tell you, it was with a desire to do you a service, Cousin Sabina.”

“That is so kind, Cousin Radegund,” said the girl, with the inward heart-shrinking one does sometimes have under such sort of assurance.

“I followed Conrad Dasipodius hither to-night to see if he made love to you.”

“And are you satisfied?” said Sabina, with scarlet cheek and heaving bosom. “Really, I should be very grateful for this.”

Radegund waved her hand carelessly. “Sarcasm does not sit well on you, my dear. Wait till your mock thanks become real ones. I say I saw the Professor Dasipodius caress you; I heard his soft whispers in your ear, for I pushed open yonder pane; I saw——” Radegund paused and gasped painfully, “I saw his lips pressed to yours!”

“What more, mistress, what more?” cried Sabina, her rosy lips paling and quivering with uncontrollable anger.

“Oh, not much more!” mocked the Artist. “Stay, how was it? ah, yes! then it was Mistress Sabina, the Lily of Strassburg, who kissed Master Dasipodius.”

“And if I did, what——”

“Oh, it was prettily done, no doubt. A sweet long kiss on each eye-lid, that is how ’twas, I think, little Cousin, and then a soft tremor, and a blush or two. Very becoming, very dainty. But it was all thrown away, child; your lover cannot see these pretty ways of yours. He is blind!—stone-blind!”

Only one momentary glance, to mark how her shaft told, the artist stole to her cousin’s face, then her eyes fell again. Eheu! what demon had stolen the old frank look from that woman’s eyes, and filled them instead with frenzied malice? In the old days, Radegund von Steinbach could look all the world in the face; but now—now!

“It is false!” cried Sabina, “and you are ill—mad, Radegund! If I thought you knew all you have been saying, I would never forgive you! But your hand is burning hot, and your cheeks are dead white. What is it you want to say?”

“I am not ill!—I am as sane as you! And I tell you, Conrad Dasipodius is blind!”

“Don’t, Radegund!” shivered Sabina; “I cannot bear to hear you talk such wild nonsense!”

“Will you have proof? Well—what about your cat there? Did not he fall over it just now?”

“But that was no wonder, Cousin Radegund, he was looking at me; and the best of people tumble over cats sometimes.”

“Little fool!” said Radegund scornfully, “he saw not you, nor your cat neither. Tell me, did not you mark how he groped about after the creature, when all the while you had it upon your knee? Why, I myself heard you say, ‘You are as blind as a mole!’”

“But,” argued Sabina faintly, “that was fun.”

“Fun that must have grated sharply enough on his ears. But tell me, is it true that you have had no suspicion of Conrad Dasipodius’ blindness?”

“No,” said the girl, awed at last by Radegund’s now calm manner; then she burst into tears.

“Not when you said to-night, as I heard you say, that his eyes had a strange look? Not when he himself confessed to you and to your father that they were sometimes dim—had you then no glimmering of the truth?”

“No! by our Lady of Sorrows, no!” and Sabina was bitterly weeping now.

“Well, don’t cry, child; that won’t mend the matter.”

If the blurring of her own beautiful eyes could have been a means of restoring her lover’s lost sight, the little woman would have gladly wept on till the crack of doom; but as it was, Sabina strove to stay her sobs, and soon the big round tears stole only silently down her cheeks; truly she tried to stay them too, but when she recalled those jesting words of hers, whose truth must have stung him so sharply, the tears would have their way. “Oh, how heartless!—how cruel she had been!”

“And now,” said Radegund sternly, “what do you think of all this?”

“Think?” said Sabina, looking up through her tears; “I think that he might have told me himself. It is very kind of you, Cousin Radegund, to bring me this ill news; but I wish he had told me himself,” and the tears rained faster.

“Yes,” sympathised Radegund, “he ought to have done it.”

“I did not say ought,” corrected Sabina; “I said I wished he had confided this trouble of his to me. I can’t think why he did not,” she continued musingly to herself.

“Such a light-hearted little maiden as you are, is scarcely one to be entrusted with grave secrets. Remember, Sabina, this is a secret involving much, very much; and it is only because I believe you to be wiser than you seem, dear child, that I have confided it to you.”

“And did Con—— Master Dasipodius, confide to you this, which he has withheld from me, Radegund?” stiffly inquired Sabina.

“If he did, it would have been no such great marvel,” returned the Artist. “Nay, have patience, Sabina; the work we are mutually engaged on would have warranted the confidence; but I heard it not from his lips.”

“From whose, then?”

“That cannot concern you, child; and I have no time to stand here chattering.”

“Oh, Conrad! Conrad,” moaned Sabina.

“Oh, but you must not be too angry with Conrad Dasipodius,” began Radegund.

“Angry?” interrupted the girl, with a mystified air.

“Yes,” replied Radegund; “the time has come for you, child, to put all sentiment out of the question. Your day-dream is past now; and of course any fancies which it may have amused you to indulge in, any little feelings which natures like yours please themselves by calling love, are now at an end.”

“Will you say all that over again, Cousin?” said the still mazed Sabina; “you are so much cleverer than I am, and I do not think I understand you.”

“I mean,” said Radegund, “that any thought you might have had about being the wife of Conrad Dasipodius will be at an end now.”

“Why?” asked Sabina, her eyes growing very round.

“Oh, you are too childish! I suppose it is not your intention to be tied to a blind husband all your life?”

“Yes, it is,” answered Sabina, “if Conrad is blind.”

The artist rose, and began to pace the floor.

“Would not you, if you—I mean, if Conrad loved you, and you——”

“Have done!” shrieked Radegund, clasping her hands over her passion-torn heart. “What can you know of love? Do you flatter yourself, you little morsel of pink and white humanity, that Conrad Dasipodius loves you?”

“There is no flattery, Radegund!” answered Sabina proudly; “Master Dasipodius has told me that he loves me, and that is enough.”

“Poor little fool! I thought you had at least more sense than I find in you; and so you really think that this Master Dasipodius, this great professor of mathematics, whom the most learned of Germany and France call teacher, this man, of whom no living woman is worthy, can stoop to love a little doll like you?”

“I am not a doll! Certainly I am little, and Master Dasipodius is very tall, but he says he doesn’t mind; and as to trying to be clever like him, one may just as well leave that alone altogether. I know, as you say, there is no woman good enough to tie his shoe-string, unless it were yourself, Radegund; and everyone knows——”

“What do they know?” hurriedly asked Radegund.

“Where your heart is,” placidly smiled Sabina.

“What do you mean?” gasped Radegund.

“Ah! but do not look like that. Is it any shame? Nay, fie, Radegund; it is a happy thing indeed to be loved by such a worthy gentleman as Bruno Wolkenberg.”

“Bruno Wolkenberg,” said Radegund, with curling lip.

“Nay, now, Radegund, you cannot gainsay me. Doll I may be; but I know all about it, and how he worships you as if you were a saint in a shrine; and so he ought, for you are so noble, and so good, and so beautiful, and charitable; and Conrad often says——”

“Well?”

“Well—patience, dear. Conrad says that you and Master Bruno will make a goodly pair; and indeed you two are well matched: not a bit like the giant and pixie Conrad calls himself and me,” and Sabina laughed quite cheerily. “Then you are two such clever people; why, Conrad says——” chatted on the little woman, delighted with her opportunity of repeating the loved name over and over again; “Conrad says, there is not a skilfuller surgeon in all Strassburg than Doctor Wolkenberg, let him be young or old.”

“I am glad,” said Radegund coldly, “that you esteem this Doctor Wolkenberg so highly, Sabina; since then, perhaps, you will not scorn his counsel as you have scorned mine.”

“I do not understand,” faltered Sabina, with another chill at her heart.

“I hoped, when I came here to-night, my own words would have sufficed to persuade you to give up your lover. I wished to mention no names, and I would have avoided paining you if I could; but you are so obstinate, child, and it does not suit you to acknowledge that to marry a blind man, is to marry one bereft of half his faculties.”

“Truly, I cannot acknowledge that,” answered Sabina; “but go on, you have more to say.”

“Next I grew bolder, and tried to make clear how foolish it is of you to imagine that so learned a gentleman as Master Dasipodius should really love such an ordinary little thing as you are.”

“It is curious,” mused Sabina; “I told you I thought so, and I do feel very proud about it, I assure you, Cousin Radegund.”

“But now,” continued the Artist, “since my own counsel is set at nought, I must tell you what Bruno Wolkenberg says, for it is Doctor Wolkenberg whom Conrad Dasipodius has consulted concerning his blindness.”

“Can he cure him?” joyfully asked Sabina. “Is there any hope?”

“None, as we count hope; but one hopes against hope sometimes, child. Listen! Yet, I fear your intellect, my Sabina, will scarcely grasp all the signification of Doctor Bruno’s learned diagnosis.”

“Tell me, then, your own unlearned one, Radegund, so only I may know all about it,” pleaded Sabina.

“Well, then, this blindness is the effect of too close an application to his profession, and indeed, ever since he was a child, to study. It is an overstraining of the eye nerves, a mischief which, had it been attended to a year or two since, might have been overcome, but then, as you know, came the competition for the making of the Horologe; and although he knew the germs of the evil were already set, Conrad Dasipodius made himself a competitor.”

“Yes,” said Sabina, with a proud glisten in her eyes; “it was very wrong indeed of him. Go on.”

“You know the result. His temperament, which is so sensitive and nervous——”

“No; there now you are wrong,” cried Sabina. “Conrad is very strong and brave; he is not a bit nervous.”

“Truly,” said Radegund contemptuously, “you are the silliest child, with your vulgar notions about nerves. I tell you one is but the braver for being nervous, and it is just this subtle and delicate organization which makes Conrad Dasipodius the man he is.”

But Sabina shook her head. “No,” she said, “it is his soul.”

“Put out of your head that priestly jargon of body, soul, and spirit,” said Radegund impatiently. “I cannot stay to explain now”—as if some leisure moment might come when she could—“how the soul acts through the mind upon the body, and how this body would be but a mere inert mass without the life-spreading nerves with their marvellous reaction——”

“But about Conrad, dear Radegund.”

“And just as some mysterious power does by a mere sword-thrust, or a pestilential breath destroy the whole body, so can it destroy or render temporarily lifeless a separate group of nerves, such as in the case of Conrad Dasipodius.”

“And it is God who has done this to Conrad!” cried Sabina, in awe-stricken tones. “Ah, what sin——”

“Don’t be foolish, Sabina. We who are wiser and untrammelled by superstition, know that it is the Horologe which has done this, and—you!” Then Radegund, with a hard cruel light in her eyes, looked searchingly at the shrinking unhappy girl, and saw that such a triumph as she wished for was to be hers. “You follow my reasoning now I think, Cousin Sabina,” she said. “You comprehend that this great mind has been overwrought, and the injury it sustained has been aggravated by mental anxiety on your account.”

How often had Conrad Dasipodius told his little sweetheart that she was his hope-star, his joy and consolation, but the world was all upside down for her now; and the bewildered Sabina could only sign to Radegund to proceed.

“I do not wish,” continued the Artist, “to lead you to imagine that it is his affection for you which thus disturbs him, because that would be, as I have already shown you, a delusion. It is rather the harassing consciousness that you have given him your affection.”

“He asked for it,” murmured Sabina in a choking voice.

“He did,” replied Radegund, turning pale as death. “So much the worse that he was carried away by a momentary impulse of—admiration we will call it; but when reflection came, then being honour itself, how could he recall his promise? And now it is this constant anxiety to be doing rightly by you, this struggling and toiling night and day to grow rich because of you——”

“Yes, yes,” cried Sabina, seeing once more a glimpse of her lost sunshine through all the bewildering mist of words, “I know he has said that to me often,—often, for my sake.”

“Yes, it was so that his kindly compassion put it to you; but it was rather in his desire to act honourably.”

“If it is only that,” said Sabina, “I had a million times rather he should forget there is such a thing as honour.”

“Spoken like a brave maiden! but Conrad Dasipodius will never act a dishonourable part. He will,” Radegund continued, “earn the guerdon for the Horologe, and then he will overrule your father’s scruples,—they are but slight ones,—and so he will marry you, my dear.”

“Never!” said Sabina, standing erect, and in a firm low voice.

“What—who is to hinder it?”

“I—I would sooner die a thousand deaths than be his wife—now.”

“Ah, I felt so sure that when the truth was made plain to you your proper pride——”

“But I have no proper pride! none, none—I love him dearly, dearly, dearly!”

“Then there is no more to be said,” replied Radegund, turning on her heel; and as she lifted the arras at the threshold, she paused—“Marry your blind wooer. Tie him to your apron string,—be his curse if you will,—vain, obstinate, selfish, shameless thing!” then she was gone.

“Radegund!” cried Sabina in a voice agonised by grief and perplexity, and, with hands wildly outstretched, “come back! tell me—Radegund—come back, come back!”

But as she brushed the blinding tears from her eyes, and strove to collect her bewildered sense, it was her father whom she saw standing before her.

“Hey, hey, pretty one,” he said, “what! have the ghosts been too much for you, then, after all? By Saint Laurence, I could have sworn one flitted by me as I came in just now, but that Marcobrunner is heady stuff, very heady. You were calling me, Sabina. Nay, nay, but what is it?” for Sabina was sobbing very bitterly now. “Have I left you too long alone? Shame on the old father, then, to play you such a sorry trick. Come, come, but I will not have you nervous like this. So—hark in your ear, little daughter,” and the Burgomaster drew his weeping child on to his knee; “you must scold your lover for this. ’Twas he beguiled me to go farther than I meant; by our Lady, he has such a winning tongue, it does one good to hear him discourse in that clerkly style of his. None of your pedants neither. Why, were I a woman myself, I’m not so sure——”

Sabina grew calmer, she had stifled her sobs that she might hear her father’s praise of the man she loved so well; praise which one little hour since would have wafted her away into a very seventh heaven of proud joy, and though so bitter to her now, yet its very bitterness was blessed.

“No,” continued Niklaus, stroking her soft hair, “it is of no use for a poor old father to try and withstand such a couple as my little lady here and yonder noble-hearted gentleman, and I hinted as much to him to-night.”

“No, father, no!” said the girl, “you did not do that! Tell me you did not do that!”

“No? But I tell you I did.”

Sabina moaned and hid her face on her father’s neck. “And you are an ungrateful puss not to be giving me a thousand kisses for it, instead of sighing and languishing away in this fashion. Why, that is not a bit like my honest little girl, who always—— Hey? What’s this—what’s this?” for Sabina’s weight was growing heavier on his breast, and her white arm slowly relaxed its hold, and slipped from his neck, and as the Burgomaster tenderly lifted the golden head of his lily, he saw that its rosy tints had all fled—Sabina had fainted.

The old man bore his unconscious burden to her chamber and laid her tenderly on her bed, and was about to summon the women servants; but scarcely was the girl’s head on the pillow than she revived, and, looking up in his face, said with a wintry smile, “I am well again now, Väterchen. It was very silly of me—how was it?”

“I don’t know,” ruefully grunted Niklaus; “we were talking about Con——”

“Ah, yes, I remember; well we won’t talk any more about him, Väterchen. It was all a mistake; and you won’t ever say his name to me again, dear? Promise.” And out of that utter trust he always placed in his little daughter, the Burgomaster promised.

“I don’t want anyone but you, Väterchen; you love me,” she asked wistfully.

“Love thee! my pretty darling. Ay,” said Niklaus, brushing away a tear or two, for the pale, gentle face brought back the face of her dead mother to the old man’s loyal heart; and what would he not have given for that mother to be there now, for he was persuaded that something had gone amiss with his child, though what it might be puzzled him sorely.

“Then kiss me,” said Sabina, holding up her arms to him. “Good-night, God bless thee, dear. I am going to sleep now. It was very silly of me, wasn’t it? but I was so tired—so tired.”

And truly indeed Nature had pity, and Sabina slept, and there came no hideous nightmare of despised love to vex her rest, only the gentle moonlight stole across the floor, and spread a soft halo about her pretty head; and the stars peeped in through the snow-crystalled panes, and no sound broke the silence save the voice of the clock in its distant corner with its eternal “wait-tic, wait-tac,” and Sabina almost smiled as she thought what a monotonous, steady, stupid old thing it was.

But the Burgomaster went back to the empty dining-hall sorely discomfited, and seating himself by the dying fire, cogitated and cogitated; but although he sat there till he was frozen to his bones, the only conclusion he could arrive at was that “never were such creatures as women, they won’t leave you alone a minute till you give them their way about a thing, and then when you’ve been regularly bothered into letting them have it, they don’t want it—they don’t want it!”

CHAPTER XV.

DR. WOLKENBERG.

Bruno Wolkenberg lived in a comfortable roomy house, whose exterior well befitted the position which he had won for himself in the city’s estimation. If anyone had the mischance to break his head or dislocate his knee-joint, or otherwise damage himself, or if his body suffered from any of those thousand and one “ills that flesh is heir to,” there was not one who could set him on his legs again like Bruno the surgeon. Only two objections were ever brought against the clever, well-looking doctor: he was young, that is, he was still some years from forty, and—he was a bachelor! but Bruno was wont to laugh down the first of these two objections, saying it was a fault which was daily mending itself; and to sigh down the second, declaring that, at all events, it was an error for which he was not responsible, although there were damsels in Strassburg who thought differently; but surely so clever a disciple of Æsculapius might have been allowed to know best where the wound in his own heart was. There was no doubt at all that Radegund von Steinbach had made that wound; and she alone, the surgeon felt, could cure it. Honest, brave, loyal-hearted, and generous to a fault was Bruno: a friend to the poor, well beloved by all, naturally of a bright, cheery temperament, and something moreover of a poet. He had even been crowned by the Meister-singer’s wreath, but the Meister-singer philosophy was far less to his taste than those glorious romantic old Minne-lieder of his country, and he knew by heart pretty nearly all the wild sagas and legends of Germany, and of other lands too; and many a sufferer’s weariness he had beguiled, and many a little one forgot its pain when Bruno had time to sit down and sing, or say, in his clear, gentle voice how Sigfrid the Horny slew the fearsome dragon, or how Knight Roland fought so bravely with death in the terrible valley; or to tell the tale to the little ones of the Cid’s good faithful horse Babieça, or best of all, how Walther von der Vogelweide so dearly loved the birds, that in death he did not forget them, but ordered holes to be scooped out in his tombstone, away up there in quaint old Wurtzburg city, and left money for crumbs to be put in them twice each day for ever, for the pretty creatures; and how (no greedy wretches, calling themselves Christians, having as yet stolen and appropriated the legacy) they came hop, hop, chirp, chirp there, and sang to the kind old Poet lying peacefully in his grave. Altogether, Doctor Bruno Wolkenberg was a very clever man, and a very good one, and people said he ought to be a happy one; but—well, had the surgeon lived but a century or two later, he might have found a dismal consolation in that aphorism his brother poet has sung:

“There’s something in this world amiss,

Shall be unriddled by and by.”

There was something very much amiss with Bruno’s world, and had been for a long time past; and often when this riddle worried him more than usual, he would sit before his lonely hearth, and vex himself almost into a fever trying to unriddle it, and yet it was soon told—nothing more than a hopeless love for Radegund von Steinbach.

Hardly so much can be said for the inside of the surgeon’s house as for its outside. Two years previously, he had bought it in the full hope and confidence that he should succeed in prevailing on Radegund von Steinbach, the beautiful artist, to come there and be its queen and châtelaine, and better still, his own well-beloved wife; but the great desolate place stood a dreary wholesome witness to the folly of lovers who reckon without their host. Bruno Wolkenberg believed, indeed, that he had good reason to hope, but the lady had proved far more difficult than he had expected. It is true, she did not immediately consign him to despair—that would have savoured too much of mercy to please Radegund von Steinbach; she had had experience in despairing lovers, and knew how very soon they were apt to find sweet consolation, and it by no means suited her to lose from her shrine a devotee whom it enhanced her glory to retain. At the same time, she told him she was wedded to her art, or at least cared for it too well to dream of sacrificing her love to it for the sake of a mere man; and yet withal, she would so smile or frown upon this mere man as the humour took her, that at the end of two years, he found his chains binding him more tightly than ever, but the ordeal had done him no good. Truly he did not moon about all ungartered and unshaven, or visit his wretchedness on his patients—the gold of his nature was too pure for that; and it was only said, that each day seemed to make Doctor Bruno the gentler and fuller of compassionate endurance for sickness and suffering of every kind whatsoever; but the healthful bloom faded from his cheek, and the joyous light in his eyes grew dimmer, and the footstep, which once had seemed to bring with it hope and health, was slower and more measured than of yore, and those brave stories of fighting Goth and Hun were all changed into sweet sad ditties, like that of the hapless lovers of Rolandseck, or of such patient obedience, faithful unto death, as the gruesome romance of Count Alarcos.

Then, too, that unworldliness and self-forgetfulness grew upon the surgeon, until the rare virtues almost fell into a weakness, for the so-called poor would take advantage and extract from him gratuitous service, when they could very well have paid for it; while the rich, after their kind, worried him, calling him out at unearthly hours to attend to fidgety little ailments, which would have been none the worse for waiting till morning. But Bruno had a kind of feeling that the world might do as it liked with him now, and whether he lived or died, could be of small consequence to anybody—least, perhaps, to himself. And all this to arise out of his ill-starred adoration for the woman who was so well able to turn him round her little white finger, that she was no more than justified in calling him, as she had called him, her spaniel! for Bruno would have sold his soul for Radegund, and at her imperious bidding, would fetch and carry, coming in, to boot, for his full share of kicks and blows.

To-night the surgeon is sitting before his hearth, elbows on knees, and his fingers clutching his crumpled locks, pondering over his problem. In all that wide experience of his amid mortal man’s accidents and diseases, he has come upon no such complication of disorders as this web of hopes and fears tangling about him now; and again and again he gazes wildly up at his surgery walls, as though hoping to find written there something which should help him.

Bruno always lived in that laboratory; the rest of his house had for him a weird indescribably desolate look. He possessed no kith nor kin; and excepting old Trudel, a woman who had received him in her arms on the day when he first came into this troublesome world, and was now his housekeeper, and sole attendant to his few wants, he liked to tell himself that there was not a creature to care whether he went tagless and buttonless, dinnerless and supperless. Wolkenberg himself was not a man to be concerned much about such mere details, but he was Trudel’s one thought by day and by night, and while the faithful soul lived, there was indeed one woman who loved him from her heart’s core. Truly her despotism almost matched her love; but then, as she would always tell you, if she, who had had him in her arms when he was scarce an ell long, did not know what was best for him, who did? As for taking care of himself, there—he was just every bit as much of a baby about it as on the day he was born.

Bruno let Trudel have her way pretty well entirely with himself and his belongings; but all her persuasions could not induce him to live, as she phrased it, “like a Christian,” and inhabit his handsome house, instead of keeping it shut up almost air-tight, and made a hunting-ground for the rats and mice and ghosts; but the surgeon was obstinate in passing his existence, day and night, in the great gloomy chamber, which was his surgery and parlour all in one, while a small recess in the wall contained the narrow bier-like construction he called his bed. Where was the use, he would rejoin to Trudel’s representations that Doctor Bruno Wolkenberg should live surrounded by at least some of the magnificence his repute and means commanded—if his bed were of silk and eider down, he would be more loath perhaps to come out of it, than he was to leave the board and rug, whence one could jump up in an instant on a sudden summons. As to his meals, upon the self-same principle, it was handier to take them sitting on his little three-legged stool by the surgery hearth, than in the fine, vast, chill guest-chamber; because, when called away, as nine times out of ten he was, just as Trudel had brought him some nice, hot, savoury dish, it could be popped down by the fire and kept hot there, you know, even if you didn’t come back till midnight.

Then, too, those rugged, old smoke-embrowned walls seemed to the lonely man more sociable and friendly of aspect than the smooth-shining wainscot and rich Flanders hangings, with their brand new smartness, which only reminded him of hope deferred—nay, well-nigh crushed, and made him unendurably wretched.

Notwithstanding, in a lonely subdued sort of fashion, the surgeon contrived to make his life happy, when once he had got himself into his rusty old frieze gown, and could indulge in the luxury of an hour or two’s uninterrupted experimentalizing or research into that great art, his devotion to which no love for woman could deaden. And well indeed for Bruno that this was so, for he was made of that sensitive stuff from which so frequently spring madness and self-murder, when hope is disappointed; thus work was his guardian genius.

To-night, however, he has laid work aside, and is sitting wearily down to look at Tantalus pictures in the fire. Outside it is blustering and stormy, and Bruno’s dog Balder pricks his ears askance at the hurly-burly, and cowers closer to the blaze. Old Trudel is dozing away in her sanctum, which years ago the surgeon caused to be made a model of snugness for her, and in a hazy sort of way, hopes that no one will come fetching her master out on such a night. “Though it’s more likely than not, of course,” soliloquizes she; “for sick folks haven’t a spark of conscience, and would worry you out of bed though you may be dreaming of the dear Heaven itself! And it’s now here, now there—I’d as lief be the church weathercock as a doctor. There now! didn’t I say so?” she cried, starting from her comfortable posture at the sound of a knocking at the outer door. “Never leave anybody in peace, that they don’t,” she added mutteringly, as she rose and proceeded to unfasten the heavy bolts. As, however, she flashed her lamp in the visitant’s face, her ruffled old brow relaxed at recognising the Professor Dasipodius.

“Ah! You is it, Master Dasipodius?” she cried. “Come in, come in then, out of the rain. Have a care of the lintel; you’ll be knocking your head. Holy Virgin! It is cold comfort outside to-night. To my thinking, a thaw’s always crueller cold than the blackest frost ever made; for all the world like death-damps——”

“Your master is alone, Trudel?” asked Dasipodius, shaking the rain from his cloak.

“Lone, poor dear, as the church weathercock,” sighed the old woman, availing herself of her pet comparison. “A deal more alone than is good for him. But there’s none so welcome to him as you, Herr Professor.” And then Trudel fairly pushed Dasipodius into the laboratory, and returned to her own sanctum, where she folded her hands with a contented air on her lap. Her poor Bruno would be happy now, chatting with his friend of friends. Well, and you would go a good long summer day’s journey before you’d find a pleasanter spoken or a nobler looking gentleman than the Herr Professor; hardly excepting Bruno himself.

CHAPTER XVI.

“IS THERE NO HOPE?”

The surgeon rose as Dasipodius entered, and bade him a kindly welcome, though, perhaps, a thought less hearty than usual. There had of late come into their friendship—one which hitherto that of Damon and Pylades would not have shamed—the little rift, for each fancied he had a grievance against the other.

In his heart of hearts, Dasipodius could not refrain from blaming Bruno for his breach of confidence; and Bruno would not have been human, had he not nursed a faint suspicion of jealousy against his friend. Could these two have mutually spoken out their grudges, things might have been righted, but apart from his promise to Radegund, the mathematician’s innate generosity constrained him from reproaching Bruno, while the surgeon’s delicacy told him that it would be an insult to Conrad’s honour to hint at a thought of jealousy on Radegund’s account, because he was perfectly acquainted with all the story of his friend’s wooing of the Burgomaster’s daughter, and so there the rift remained; not, however, widening, after the manner of rifts, but only jarring the once perfect harmony, and no ordinary ear would have detected any want of heartiness in Wolkenberg’s welcome, as he took his friend by the hand to lead him to a seat.

“Nay. No, come now, Bruno!” laughed Dasipodius, withdrawing his hand; “if I had need of that, I should be undone indeed.”

“True,” replied Bruno; “but you are a marvel, Conrad; and I’d give something to change bodies—and souls too, I expect, with you, for a while, just to find out what that new sense of yours is like. We ordinary mortals certainly know nothing about it.”

“Don’t wish to know it, Bruno,” said Dasipodius, in low sad tones.

“Forgive me, Conrad. I have recalled the memory of your affliction, when you are for ever striving to hush it to sleep.”

“No—it never sleeps.”

“Conrad!” bitterly cried the surgeon. “They speak falsely who say God is always just!”

“Hush! Bruno—dear old friend——”

“Well, well, but what would I not give to win you back your sight.”

“Everything,” said Dasipodius, resigning his wet cloak, and the stout stick, without which he never ventured abroad now. “Everything, I know—short only of that honest love of yours.”

The surgeon gazed keenly at his visitor’s face; but saw only that its ordinary calm, almost sad gravity had yielded to a quiet smile.

“It might be worth letting even that go in so good a cause,” muttered Wolkenberg.

“No, no. You would do no such thing. Why, I hate to hear you talk even in jest of throwing away such a possession when once it is yours.”

“How do I know that it is mine?” growled Bruno, with his hands in his pockets, kicking over the three-legged stool. “How do I know——”

“Nonsense, man, nonsense! Where’s your patience?”

“Gone. I’ve had a good three years’ stock of it, and it’s all gone—every jot.”

“Then lay in another supply. Mistress Radegund will capitulate one of these days. A woman, if she’s worth the name, must bestow her love somewhere, God bless her! And Radegund makes no secret about confessing you to be her best and dearest friend, you ungrateful Bruno—you.”

“Friend! I loathe that word. It maddens me.”

“But do not let it. Women like Radegund von Steinbach glory in not owning to such soft passions. But him she acknowledges to so great a friendship for, as Radegund acknowledges for you, then, let her call him by what name she will, that is the man she loves in her heart.”

“Did Sabina von Steinbach call you friend?” asked Bruno.

“Nay, but then Radegund is not Sabina,” replied Conrad.

“Truly, Sabina is not Radegund,” said Bruno musingly.

Then each lover, falling to picturing to himself the incomparably superior charms of his own mistress, there was silence for some time in the old laboratory.

“It is so good of you, Conrad,” said the surgeon, breaking it at last, and, picking up his stool, he seated himself at Dasipodius’ feet, while he began to rake absently among the embers with an old divining rod. “It is so good of you to talk to me like this. Not a soul besides you, excepting perhaps poor old Trudel, cares a fig whether I am wretched or happy, or here, or in my grave.”

“You heretical, growling old Bear! Tell me now,” said Dasipodius, feeling for Bruno’s curly locks, and laying his hand caressingly there—“let your mind’s eye travel round this great city of ours, and then count to me, if you can, the homes where your wondrous skill has chased away death and pain; and then—pretending to think none would weep for loss of you.”

“They would weep for loss of the good I can bring them—not for me. I desire to be loved for myself.”

“And what is yourself but your skill, and your skill but yourself? you dear, grumbling, illogical, profitable servant. For what is it but your own heart, goodness, and compassion, and sympathy, working hand-in-hand with your intellectual gifts, which makes you what you are? How can you sever one from the other, without marring the whole—what God has so welded together? and that makes you what you are, our good Dr. Bruno Wolkenberg, our dear Saint Bruno.”

“Nay,” said the surgeon, with a grim smile, “I should make but a poor saint enough!”

“You would have no vote in the matter. It is the voice of the consistory which canonizes; not the catechumen himself,” laughed Dasipodius; “and at all events it’s no flattery to say there’s many a worse saint in the calendar than you would make.”

“Well,” and Bruno laughed quite merrily, “it does need reforming. But it’s all of no use, Conrad; you are very good to try and cheer me with your gentle philosophy, and I like to ferret your thoughts out of you if I can. But look now, it is so easy for you to preach content, you who have but to desire a woman’s love, and it is yours, while I——” Wolkenberg paused and sighed heavily, absently fixing his eyes on his crucible simmering softly over the lamp flame. “What ever does go right with me? When now and again, perhaps, I flatter myself I have lighted on a discovery which might bring renewed health and life to thousands of one’s fellow-creatures, why, there my alembic cracks and bursts, and the labour of days—of weeks and months even—is all lost—all lost! No, everything fails, withers at my touch. While you, whether it be Sabina’s love, or whether it be the Cathedral Horologe—all succeed with you.”

“That reminds me,” said Dasipodius gravely, “I came to ask you once more, Bruno, if indeed there is no hope for my lost sight?”

The surgeon coloured deep with crimson shame. The tacit rebuke in the blind man’s words pierced him to the heart, and a tear of regret for his thoughtless ebullition travelled slowly down to his tawny beard; and to the mathematician’s quick ear it seemed as though his friend’s breath came and went louder and faster than its wont, until through the prolonged silence there came a sound like an ill-suppressed sob.

“There, only think now,” went on Dasipodius quickly. “Should not I of all others have to give a suffrage for your sainting? What should I do without you, my Bruno?”

“Alas! what have I done? What can I do for you?” sighed Bruno.

“Be a good fellow; and tell me if these eyes of mine will ever be worth anything again, for it is all black enough about me now. So take your lamp, and put me out of my misery at once.”

The mathematician spoke cheerily, for him almost lightly; but his clear olive cheek was deeply flushed, and the nails of his supple slender fingers were clenched into the very flesh, as the surgeon rose, and fetching his lamp from a distant table, returned to Conrad’s side with slow, unhopeful tread. He knew there was no more forlorn hope than this his friend had come in quest of. Again and again Dasipodius had submitted himself to these painful testings at Bruno’s hands, which the surgeon had deemed might in the end lead to the restoring of the lost sense, but each successive examination had but confirmed his worst forebodings week by week; the dim sight had grown dimmer, the film which at first had seemed like a thin veil to render surrounding objects more beautiful, grew into a haze which gradually blackened to a cruel mist, until the mist itself grew dense, and then denser, and midnight darkness supervened. Whether in these days of continuous progress in surgical science there might have been a chance for Dasipodius, avails nothing to enquire. Certain it is, that out of his soul’s deep affection, amounting to a sort of veneration, Wolkenberg did what he could for his friend, but all his efforts had been fruitless; and now he prepared for what he felt must be a mere empty ceremony.

The last time it had been gone through with, the surgeon had darkened his dark old laboratory to utter midnight obscurity, then lighting a lamp he had flashed it in front of Conrad’s eyes, which had blinked at the sudden rush of light, but this night Bruno, trying his experiment again, could see that not a quiver disturbed those well-shapen, heavily-fringed lids shading the grand sightless eyes, which seemed to be gazing far away through the dreary smoke-dried walls into some pure illimitable distance.

“You sigh, Bruno?” said Dasipodius, as the surgeon set down his lamp.

“Did I?” said Bruno.

“Yes. Now, Bruno, tell me, did you pass that lamp before my eyes again, as you did last time?”

“Yes,” reluctantly acknowledged Wolkenberg; then he added, still more slowly: “but you did not know it.”

“I did not see the faintest glimmer of it. Many thanks, Bruno, though after all, it was very childish of me to come teazing you again. But we poor mortals are so fond of hoping against hope, are not we?” and Conrad’s voice faltered slightly. “What is this? Another tear? and not mine! By our Lady! No, come now, Bruno, old friend, I’ll not have you fretting your heart out so.”

“Oh, Conrad! And they say God is good.”

“Well, yes, indeed. How can I complain. I who, as you say, have so much—all that is best, which cannot be taken away from me. Hark!” he cried, as some distant clock struck eight. “What an idler I am! There is a friend reminding me of my own ewe lamb, waiting for me at home. Do you know, my Bear, I am beginning to care for that Horologe as if it were some living human thing. I begrudge every moment I am away from it.”

“It will be making Mistress Sabina quite jealous,” suggested Wolkenberg.

“Not at all,” returned the hard-headed, calculating lover, “for it is to give her to me. No Horologe—no Sabina.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” returned Bruno.

Dasipodius contented himself with a smiling “She is a dear, good little girl. Now, sleep well, old friend, and may all bright angels keep Mephisto from cheating you into any more miserable moods.”

So, with step surer and firmer than many a man’s whose sight is clear as day, the blind mathematician, accompanied by Bruno, made his way out into the corridor. They had barely reached the door before a fresh summons was heard upon its massive oaken panels. Bruno proceeded to undo the bolts.

“There is to be no peace for you to-night,” smiled Dasipodius, stepping aside to make room for the new-comer. “What fresh trouble is abroad, I wonder?”

A rush of north-east wind forced the door wide open, nearly extinguishing the lamp, and literally blowing over the threshold, from the dark street, a little figure muffled in a voluminous mantle. Rude Boreas had played such tricks with this cloak that its folds had become twisted round and round, so as completely to conceal the small person’s head and face; and only a long tress or two of golden hair straying and clinging outside, hinted at what manner of creature might in time be revealed; but the surgeon’s surmises were confirmed, when a little white hand stole forth, and began to unswathe the embarrassing drapery, until at last Bruno recognised Sabina von Steinbach.

“Mistress Sa——” began he, but before so much was well out of his lips, the Burgomaster’s daughter had hurriedly lifted a silencing finger to her lips, glancing at the same time to where Dasipodius stood back in the shadows, barely a yard from her. Half-blinded by the sleet and wind, the girl had still caught sight of her lover’s figure. Wolkenberg stood, sorely bewildered, but Sabina’s little warning gesture quite sufficed for his doctor’s second nature; and he only gazed in silence from Sabina to where Dasipodius stood all unconscious of that dear presence. Bruno saw that the girl’s eyes were riveted on the mathematician’s face, half puzzled, half scrutinizingly, while her hands were clenched with agonised intentness.

Dasipodius was the first to speak. “Farewell then, Dr. Bruno,” he said, and so passed out into the night, brushing, as he went, the skirt of Sabina’s mantle with his own long scholar’s cloak.

In breathless, statue-like stillness, Sabina watched her lover bend his stately neck under the low-arched doorway, and disappear in the darkness; and still when he was gone, she stood as though transfixed by some terrible nightmare dream, till suddenly, with a cry like that of a poor, tender, wounded animal, she sprang to the door. “Conrad!” she wailed. “Come back, darling—come back to me—Conrad!” But there was no answer, save the wind-gusts howling up the deserted street, and the chill sleet driving in on her death-pale face, and she sank despairingly on the threshold. Then the pitying-hearted surgeon approached and lifting in his arms the poor lily, all drooping and shattered, bore her to the warmth and shelter of his own hearthstone, and there tended her, as he would have tended some dear little sister of his own, back to consciousness, and back too, as he sighingly thought, to the remembrance of some grief, whose nature puzzled him every whit as greatly as it had puzzled her father, no longer ago than last night.

CHAPTER XVII.

FAREWELL.

The house in the Dom Platz inhabited by Radegund von Steinbach and her brother Otto, was no modern sixteenth century edifice. It had been built more than two hundred years earlier by Erwin von Steinbach himself, for his son Johan, and from him it had descended through generations to the present possessors.

A grand old house, full within and without of magnificent architectural beauties; light, however, clear, full, white daylight, was not one of its strong points; and on this account, Radegund had had her difficulties in the choice of a studio from among its many chambers. Ultimately, however, she had fixed on one whose fair-sized windows, looking out upon the Platz, afforded her the best chance of tempering her lights and shadows. Tradition declared this chamber to have been the sanctum of Erwin’s daughter, who had followed in it the study of Painting’s twin-sister art. This circumstance duly taken into account, what more natural than to hold the place for haunted? But Mistress Radegund had little fear of the ghosts; she dreaded much more those familiar lion-hunting, sight-seeing spirits, who would seek admission to her studio, to get a glimpse of herself perhaps, or to see the rich carving of the famous oaken ceiling, and the huge chimney-piece, with its quaint scroll-work, and life-size figures; and stand in admiring wonder before the curious tapestry hangings, somewhat ragged and faded now, which, it was said, had been designed and wrought by the world-famous architect’s daughter.

It might very naturally be argued that Radegund had it in her own hands to deny the sightseers admittance, but her pride of ancestry—and she would rather have been old Erwin’s descendant than the Emperor’s own daughter—outweighed personal considerations, and it pleased her well that everything appertaining to the memory of her illustrious progenitor should be kept in remembrance. The place, therefore, was accessible to those who sought the privilege, save on occasions sufficiently rare, when one of her exclusive fits chanced to be upon her. Such a fit had possessed itself of her ever since her stolen interview with her Cousin Sabina two days since. During this time she had denied herself to her most intimate acquaintance; and now on the third day she was by no means pleased when she heard a voice without, asking admittance in gentle pleading tones.

She made no response, but fiercely continued her sketching in. Nevertheless, when the knocking grew importunate and seemed in no way inclined to give over until some kind of answer had been vouchsafed, Radegund, in self-defence, opened the door. “How is it that I may not——?” she angrily began; then she paused, for it was Sabina.

“May I come in, Cousin Radegund?” asked the girl. “I want to speak with you.”

“Come in then, child,” replied the artist, ungraciously enough, and leaving Sabina to find a seat as she might, Radegund resumed her labours at the newly-sketched canvas on her easel, with her face well turned away from her cousin.

“But see now, dear Radegund,” said the girl, “I want you to lay down your pencil, and take up your pen in my behalf.”

All the way from her own house, Sabina had been concocting this little speech. It is true the nature of her errand was tearing her heart in two, but she had persuaded herself that it was best to pitch this confabulation with Radegund in a cheerful and even jesting key, and this pleasant little conceit of words she had devised would, she thought, possibly help to conciliate her somewhat difficult cousin into doing for her the favour she had to ask. Just that vexatious Nemesis, however, overtook Sabina, which inevitably does overtake sore-hearted folks when unreal stoicism strives to conquer old Dame Nature, and she burst out crying, and that in no decorous flow of tears, but a stream of bitter sobs.

Time was when in that warm, sheltering way which was truly hers, Radegund would have comforted and caressed the girl back to calmness; but that was all changed now.

“Upon my word,” she said, “I never imagined you were such a silly cry-baby, my dear. What is the matter?”

And at last she laid down her pencil, and gazed at Sabina with cold, hard eyes, until the sobs had subsided.

Possibly this lack of sympathy stayed Sabina’s weeping more effectually than all attempts at consolation, for the Burgomaster’s daughter dried her tears quickly, and said, “Yes, that is quite true, Radegund, for there can, of course, be no more foolish thing than to cry for——” and then, despite her bravest efforts, Sabina was near breaking down again.

“Cry for what?” demanded the impatient Radegund.

“For what one has never had,” desperately concluded Sabina.

“Who has been teaching you to speak in riddles?” asked Radegund, lifting her brush again.

“It’s no riddle,” answered Sabina; “it’s the very simplest, plainest thing in the world. You say Conrad does not love me.”

“I say so?” demanded Radegund, arching her handsome brows.

“Certainly you said so, and you are right. If he had loved me, don’t you suppose he would have told me of his trouble.”

“But——” interposed the artist.

“No. I know all you’d say, Radegund; but you won’t alter it, though you are always so clever and kind, and I’m ve—very much obliged to you for what you came and told me the other night, and if——forgive me, Radegund, if I had any doubt at all that it was not true, I know now that it is, because I’ve asked Doctor Bruno Wolkenberg, and he says it is.”

“What—what have you done?” more shrieked than said Radegund, throwing down her pencil, and turning on Sabina.

“Now don’t be angry with me, Cousin Radegund. It was not in the least, I tell you, that I doubted your word, because you know, everybody knows you are just truth itself—always. Why, father often says, ‘My niece Radegund,’—don’t be angry now,” deprecated Sabina,—“‘has her faults—but she’s sterling gold’.”

Radegund shivered, and her pale cheek grew aflame.

“And so, of course,” continued Sabina, “it would not be that I did not believe you,—that is, at last; but when things have to do with—with this sort of thing, it’s the same as life and death, isn’t it?”

“Go on,” muttered Radegund.

“And so, to make sure—I mean, of course,” continued Sabina, floundering lamentably over her choice of words, for there could be no question but that she had secretly fled to Bruno Wolkenberg that night with some faint glimmer of hope that her cousin Radegund was labouring under some delusion—“for she looked fearfully odd and wild”—Sabina had many a time since thought to herself, “fearfully odd and wild”—to make sure.

“It was a seemly thing surely, for Mistress Sabina von Steinbach to make Bruno Wolkenberg father-confessor of her love affairs,” said Radegund, with seething anger.

“I did nothing of the kind,” answered Sabina, her white brow flushing crimson. “I simply asked Dr. Bruno how it was that Con—Master Dasipodius had become blind.”

“It was a secret.”

“One which, before all other people, concerned me.”

“And—you found I had told you no lies?”

“Don’t speak like that, Radegund,” entreated the girl. “It is so cruel—so unlike you. Listen, I found only that it was all too true. But we won’t talk about that. It never is to be talked about any more, when once—— See, Radegund, I came to ask you to write a letter for me to—him—to the Professor Dasipodius. And you will—say you will, because it must be written, and whom dare I ask but you? because, as you say, it is such a secret—such a terrible, terrible secret!”

In the past happy careless years, had it once crossed this girl’s dreams that there would come to her the necessity for writing such a letter, she would, in spite of all objection, have had herself taught to write; then she could have written her own letter, and perhaps would have worded it differently from the one she would have dictated to any third person whatsoever, and might have materially changed the aspect affairs were assuming; but this world has always been full of ‘ifs’ and ‘might have beens,’ and, doubtless, Eternal Providence cared for this uncultured little lady every whit as much as it cares for the girls of our period, whose unthorough scrappy notions of everything under the sun from Sanskrit to sewing, render them unfit—at least for man; so events in Sabina’s life found their balance. Still, when it came to setting down in staring actual black and white, a farewell of the man she loved, she had to summon all her fortitude to enable her to dictate the cruel words. And Radegund, seated there, pen in hand, with her sphinx face, would not help her by so much as a syllable. She was, she said, but the instrument, and would, of course, put down just what—Heaven save the mark!—Sabina liked; and thereupon Sabina proceeded to dictate what, out of that unselfish faithful love of hers, she imagined was the one thing left for her to say—and the missive, in its completeness, ran thus:

“To the Herr Professor Dasipodius.

“Since we last met, I have come to know of you something which you have kept hidden from me. You are blind. Why did you not tell me so? You might have trusted me with your secret. It would have been so far, far better that I should have known all. But now, I will ask no questions, because it does not matter. I desire no answer. Your own heart knows that it will be best for you and for me, that there should be no answer, for what you have called love between us must end. Farewell—good, dear friend.”

“That won’t do at all,” snapped Radegund, lifting her pen—“that ending.”

“Why not?” demanded Sabina, opening her blue eyes wide.

“It is too affectionate.”

“Not at all,” sturdily returned Sabina. “Go on please, Radegund.” And Radegund gloomily dipped her pen into the ink.—“Well?”

“I shall always think of you——”

“That is ridiculous!” and Radegund flung down the pen, and half rose from her seat. “It will make—everything a thousand times worse than ever. He will not understand a bit that you——”

“Oh, yes, yes, he will indeed. You don’t know Master Dasipodius so well as I do, Radegund dear,” said Sabina proudly. “I want him, you see, so thoroughly to understand that I am not—not a bit vexed with him,”—her voice faltered a little. “You see now, don’t you?”

“I hate half measures,” muttered Radegund, taking up the pen once more.

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” humbly returned Sabina, “unless you want to say that his not loving me is one half, and my loving him, for I——”

“Ah! For pity’s sake, don’t talk such nonsense. What more?”

“Just an instant, dear, let me think. Stay, yes, write—‘and may God and Our Lady protect you always. Farewell,

“‘Your true friend.’

Don’t put any name.”

“How foolish you are, child. Why not?”

“Because I don’t wish,” came the feminine answer. “He’ll know without that.”

“But the handwriting is mine.”

“That is of no consequence,” returned Sabina. “I mean, you are of no consequence, you know, and so—ah dear! what do I mean?” she blundered on, for her tear-bedimmed eyes were still able to mark the frown gathering on her cousin’s brow. “I mean that when he reads it, he will understand that—oh me!—when Master Christian reads it to him—of course, that it is I, and no one else. I am sure he will, Radegund.”

“Then put your mark,” said Radegund, forcing the pen into her cousin’s ice-cold hand, and slowly and reluctantly Sabina marked a little cross, but the scratchy sign was quite unworthy of those cleft fingers. When, however, the task was accomplished, Sabina stooped down over Radegund, and was about to kiss her farewell.

“Don’t, child! You stifle me,” said the artist, roughly pushing her aside. “Say, how do you wish this letter to reach Conrad Dasipodius?”

“I thought, perhaps, my Cousin Otto would take it to Master Christian’s house, to the Silver Dial, you know, as if it had come from you, Radegund.”

“From me!”

“Some business letter, you know, about the Horologe.”

“You don’t forget, I suppose, that Master Christian is not aware of his son’s blindness.”

“Oh, yes. I did! I did,” wailed her visitor. “I—I—it all confuses me so. No, of course, Radegund, it must not be taken there in case——”

“Otto shall give it to Master Dasipodius himself at the studio. Make your mind easy on that score,” interrupted Radegund.

“And seal it now at once before I go. Will you, Radegund?” asked the girl anxiously; but scarcely had the words left her lips, than the Burgomaster’s stick rapped a loud tattoo on the door.

“Art ready to come home with me, little one?” he asked, peeping in.

Niklaus had been down to the Chancellery on business affairs, and on leaving had chanced, as he frequently did, to look in on his niece, and learning from one of the servants that Sabina was with her, he had come up in search of them both.

“Ah, ha!” he laughed. “There you are then! Two women putting their heads together—that always means mischief—miching mallecho, eh? So come away, baggage; do you know it’s growing pitch dark, and hours too late for you to be out alone. It’s well I came! Come now, those two tongues would be wagging all night, I’ll wager, about furbelows and farthingales and—and what not.”

If Niklaus bungled a trifle over the end of his little speech, it was, perhaps, because he had been going to say “sweethearting,” but he recollected just in time that something was not quite all ship-shape with Sabina on the tender subject, and as to Radegund, she invariably frowned if ever he hazarded one of the small pleasantries he deemed himself privileged to indulge in at the expense of any one of Sabina’s girl friends, who chanced to be favoured with a special admirer, or whom he thought might be in quest of such an indispensability. “And what maiden was not? Isn’t it all right and proper? Why, I wouldn’t give you five batzen for a woman who’d say no to a good honest fellow who wants her to say yes. And my niece there has her notions too, depend upon it, for all it suits her to ride the high horse, and make believe she’s above that sort of thing. Above, forsooth! she may think herself in luck for all those big black eyes of hers, if—well, well, each to his tastes, and if a man likes the bay mare to be the better horse, he might get her along fairly, if he keeps her well on the curb; but I don’t care for her tricks myself. They may be vices, or tackle them the right way they may be good points. There’s no doubt that women, the very best of them, are odd creatures; and Radegund, the oddest of all. Made of good stuff though, mind you. All the von Steinbachs are.”

Now, however, the Burgomaster, prudently refraining from any playful allusions which might have entered his head, rolled Sabina warmly up in her furred cloak, and tucked her little hand under his arm, and the poor child had barely time to glance wistfully at the still unsealed letter, and to say to Radegund: “You’ll do it for me at once, Radegund?”

“Ay—of course she’ll do it—be it what it may. Whoever refuses thee anything, little one, eh? Good-night, niece Radegund. Sleep well.”

And then without more ado, the Burgomaster hurried his daughter away.

END OF VOL. I.

[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.

Page 154: least to last—“at last he was to be won over”.]

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Table of Contents

- THE SILVER DIAL.

- CONTENTS.

- CHAPTER I.

- CHAPTER II.

- CHAPTER III.

- CHAPTER IV.

- CHAPTER V.

- CHAPTER VI.

- CHAPTER VII.

- CHAPTER VIII.

- CHAPTER IX.

- CHAPTER X.

- CHAPTER XI.

- CHAPTER XII.

- CHAPTER XIII.

- CHAPTER XIV.

- CHAPTER XV.

- CHAPTER XVI.

- CHAPTER XVII.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE