CHAPTER XXXVI.
YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL The next morning early, as I went about making my dispositions, and putting men of trust in positions fit for them--for the Prince has given me the command of all the soldiers within the city--the Lady Ysolinde came to me upon the terrace.
"Walk with me a while," she said, "in the lower garden.

It is a quiet place, and I would speak with you." It was a command that I dared not refuse to obey, yet my greatest enemy would not accuse me that I went lightly or willingly to such a tryst.
The Lady Ysolinde passed on daintily and proudly before me, and I followed, more like a condemned criminal lamping heavily to the scaffold than a lad of mettle accompanying a fair lady to a rendezvous of her own asking under the greenwood-tree.
But I need not have feared.

The Princess's mood was mild, and I saw her in a humor in which I had never seen her before.
She moved before me over the grass, with her head a little turned up to the skies, as though appealing out of her innocence to the Beings who sat behind and sorted out the hearts of men and women.
At a great weeping-elm, under which was a seat, she turned.

It formed a wide canopy of shade, grateful and cool.

For the breezes stirred under the leaves, and the river moved beneath with a pleasant, meditative hush of sound.
"Hugo Gottfried, once you were my friend," she began; "what have I done that you should be my friend no more?
Tell me plainly.