Your collar is all rumpled--'tis
that of yesterday. YOU HAVE NOT BEEN TO BED! What has chanced, brother
of mine: what has chanced?"
"A common chance, Louis of Hombourg," said the Margrave: "one that
chances every day. A false woman, a false friend, a broken heart. THIS
has chanced. I have not been to bed."
"What mean ye?" cried Count Ludwig, deeply affected. "A false friend? I
am not a false friend. A false woman? Surely the lovely Theodora, your
wife--"
"I have no wife, Louis, now; I have no wife and no son."
*****
In accents broken by grief, the Margrave explained what had occurred.
Gottfried's information was but too correct. There was a CAUSE for the
likeness between Otto and Sir Hildebrandt: a fatal cause! Hildebrandt
and Theodora had met at dawn at the outer gate. The Margrave had seen
them. They walked long together; they embraced. Ah! how the husband's,
the father's, feelings were harrowed at that embrace! They parted; and
then the Margrave, coming forward, coldly signified to his lady that she
was to retire to a convent for life, and gave orders that the boy should
be sent too, to take the vows at a monastery.
Both sentences had been executed. Otto, in a boat, and guarded by a
company of his father's men-at-arms, was on the river going towards
Cologne, to the monastery of Saint Buffo there.
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