No other tidings would have made Henry of Germany turn pale, for he had only been married to the empress two years, for whom he felt the tenderness of a parent, and the faithful love of a husband. His union with this angelic young woman had given him the only happy hours he had passed during his stormy and unfortunate life. He had not courage at this miserable moment even to ask what his wife had done, but was gathering the strength of a failing heart to do so, when Guthram broke the ominous silence, by saying, “she has done what we cannot pass by unnoticed, for the honor of the imperial throne, and we should deserve the name of traitors to our sovereign lord, if we should hesitate to make her misconduct known to him.” “What has she done?” again demanded the emperor, growing paler than before. “In your absence she has encouraged the love of a young knight, and that so openly,” replied Guthram, “that if she gives birth to a son, however the people may rejoice in that event, your nobility will mourn; for though any master is good enough for the multitude, none but the noblest in the empire can command the highest nobles in the world, who will render homage to none but the son of an emperor.” Henry supported himself against the chair of state on which he leaned, or he would have fallen to the floor, for he remembered that only a month before, the empress had written to him to announce her maternal hopes, with the pleasure natural to a young woman about to become a mother. “What has become of the knight?” asked the emperor. “He quitted Cologne as suddenly as he entered it, without any person knowing from whence he came, or whither he is going. His country and name are secrets with which we are unacquainted, but you had better ask the empress, she perhaps, can satisfy your majesty.”