220 The Countess-Itha

the Italian sowed the seeds of suspicion and
watchfulness in his master’s mind.

Consider, then, if these were not days of
heart-break for this lady, still so young and
so beautiful, so unlovingly entreated, and so
far away from the home of her happy child-
hood. Yet she,bore all patiently and with-
out complaint or murmur, only at times
when she looked from terrace or tower her
gaze travelled beyond the deep pine-woods,
and in a wistful day-dream she retraced, be-
yond the great lake and the Black Forest,
all the long way she had ridden so joyfully
with her dear husband by her side.

One day in the springtime, when the birds
of passage had flown northward, carrying her
tears and kisses with them, she bethought
her of the rich apparel in which she had
been wed, and took it from the carved oaken
coffer to sweeten in the sun. Among her
jewels she came upon her betrothal ring,
and the glitter of it reminded her of what
her lord had said of its enchantment and the
strange stories told of it. “Are any of
them so sad and strange as mine?” she
wondered with tears in her eyes; then kiss-
ing the ring in memory of that first kiss