"I shall go and tell Margaret's father!" Herman's mother exclaimed, her eyes gleaming with gladness; and although it was night, and the streets were dangerous for a woman to venture out, the thought of a father's and a sick mother's inexpressible anxiety, more painful because of her sense of helplessness, induced her to undertake the errand. They kept each other company up to the point where they were compelled to part. "Where is Mistress Margaret?" Herman asked, when he and Heinrich, watching his mother disappear at the bend of a street, turned into an alley. "That's my secret," came the laughing answer. "Come and see." They took all the byways, until Herman was completely lost, and then, unexpectedly, he was pulled up in front of a stable door, which Heinrich opened. "Go in!" the simple one exclaimed, standing aside; "but wait," he added, when Herman stood within, not knowing where to move in the darkness. After some trouble, Heinrich lit his lantern and led the way up some rickety steps into a hayloft. Standing on the top step, Herman saw a humble room where the furniture was scarce and poor. A table stood in the middle of the floor, and by it sat an elderly woman, working at a man's much worn garment by the candlelight, although the hour was so late. She looked up when she heard Heinrich's voice. "Mother," he whispered, looking in through the half-opened door almost stealthily. "Yes, my son." "Is she asleep?" "No. She was talking to me, anxious about you, until she heard you down below, and then she went to her room to be out of the way. But I heard someone else. Who is it?" "Go and tell her, mother, to come and see her lover, the man she should have wedded to-morrow. Tell her that, mother." Herman gazed around the bare and desolate place when he had stepped within. A few moments only had gone when a cry sprang to his lips. For through the open doorway which Heinrich's mother had passed, someone came. It was Margaret, her hands outstretched, her beautiful face wan and pale, transformed now from the consuming anxiety before the woman entered. Her eyes were gleaming with the love-light. "Herman!" she cried, as she went to her lover's arms. CHAPTER XXIV THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE Margaret was still in jeopardy, and before many hours had gone it was known that she stood in danger of again being lodged in the place from whence she had just been rescued. What should have been her bridal day was spent in hiding, and her father did not dare to come to see her in the broad daylight lest someone belonging to the Holy House should be watching, in readiness to track him, on the supposition that he would be going to see his daughter. It was dark when he came, but after he had gone home again, Margaret pleaded to be taken home, if only for an hour, to see her mother.