"Methinks, Bertram, _she_ was," said Wilfred quietly, "But it was not of Saint Mary, nor of any other saint, that I had intent to tell thee, but of one whom no Pope ever took the pain to canonise, and who yet, as methinks, was the greatest woman of whom ever I heard. It may perchance astound thee somewhat, to learn that I am not purely an English man. My mother came from far over seas,--from Dutchland, [Germany.] in the dominions of the Duke's Grace of Austria. And when she was a young maid, at home in her country, that befel of which I am about to tell thee. It happed that in the Court of the Emperor's Majesty, [Note 1] which at that time was Albright [Albert] the First, was a young noble, by name Rudolph, Count von der Wart. My mother was handmaid unto my Lady Gertrude his wife, and she spake right well of her mistress. A young gentle lady, said she, meek and soft of speech, loving and obedient unto her lord, and in especial shamefaced, shrinking from any public note of herself or any deed she did. This lady had not been wed long time, when the Emperor Albright died. And he died by poison. Some among his following had given it; and his judges sat to try whom. God wot who it were, and assoil [forgive] him! But some men thought that his cousin, Sir Henry of Luxemburg, which was Emperor at after him, had been more in his place at the bar than on the bench. The sentence of the court was that divers men were cast for death. And one of them thus convinced [convicted] was the young Count von der Wart." "But was he not innocent, Father?" "He was innocent. But he was doomed to the awful death of the wheel, and he suffered it." "Pity of his soul!" cried Bertram indignantly. "And when the news was brought to the Lady Gertrude, she went white as death, and fell back in a swoon into the arms of my mother." "And she was borne to her bed, and brake her heart, and so died!" interjected Bertram, who thought that this would be the proper poetical ending of the story. "Thou shalt hear. When the day of execution came, a great throng of men gathered in the market-place for to see the same. And when all was done,"--Wilfred evidently shrank from any lingering over the harrowing details--"when the dusk fell, and the prisoners had suffered their torments, such as yet overlived were left bound on the wheel to die there. Left, amid the jeers and mockings of the fool [foolish] throng, which dispersed not, but waited to behold their woe--left, with unbound wounds, to the chill night, and with no mercy to look for saving mercy of God. But no sooner were the executioners gone, than, lapped in a furred cloak, the Lady Gertrude left her house, and went out into the midst of the cruel, taunting crowd." "But what did she?" Wilfred's answer was in that low, tremulous voice, which would have hinted to a more experienced listener that his sympathies were deeply stirred by the story he was telling.